The Latest from SaaStr: Shopify Says eCommerce is Back. But AWS Says Cloud Under More Scrutiny.

THE LATEST FROM SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Friday, October 28, 2022 | Early, Scale

So this was an interesting week in terms of reading the tea leaves on what’s going on in SaaS, Cloud, the economy, and all that.  Pressure is definitely up, yet, unemployment remains at record lows and consumer spending remains strong.

eCommerce is Back. Shopify rocketed to 22% growth this quarter, from 16% the prior quarter. In the eComm world, everyone was wondering — when will we get back to normal?  It looks like we have, and we’re over the Covid Hangover in eCommerce. 

But it wasn’t all roses this week in the industry leaders.  The Cloud infra side grew nicely, but growth did slow.

Q&A

By Jason Lemkin  · Friday, October 28, 2022 | Early, Fundraising

Almost always — no matter how freemium you want to go in SaaS, you should at least have a paid edition on Day 1.  Even if you are going pure freemium.

My top 50 biggest mistakes include not charging at all for our first few months.

Free “customers” for many SaaS apps can be a waste of a fair amount of time and energy — and, in fact, worse than that.

NEW PODCAST + VIDEO

By Amelia Ibarra  · Friday, October 28, 2022 | Leadership, Metrics

As we get closer to the end of 2022, conversations are flying about the present and future of the SaaS market. Once upon a time, like back in 2021, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and even investors emphasized revenue metrics like AAR over gross margins. But that’s not the case anymore. 

Does that mean growth is slowing down for SaaS startups?

In the first session of our new CRO Confidential series focused on CROs and sales, Founders Fund Partner and one of the top sales leaders in the world for the past decade and a half, Sam Blond interviews SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin about the macro impact of these evolving conditions in 2022 and what that means for 2023. 

SAASTR EUROPA 2023

At SaaStr, our partners are an integral part of our events. In June 2023, we’re heading back to London for SaaStr Europa and we wanted to give a special shout-out to some of the companies that will be there with us.

We’ll see 2,500+ of the best SaaS founders, execs, and VCs June 6-7 at 2022 SaaStr Europa!  Grab tickets here.

Join these incredible companies to experience all the value of SaaStr.

GROWTH

By Jason Lemkin  · Thursday, October 27, 2022 | Career Growth & Advice, Early

In SaaS, I think one of the biggest traps you can get yourself into as a founder is doing Low ROI things for one minute longer than you have to.

Of course, this is true in all start-ups.  

But quickly, in SaaS, it becomes worse.  

Why?  Because there are more functional areas to handle, earlier. You need engineering, product in all start-ups — but in SaaS, even in the very early days, you also need sales, client success, true support, demand gen marketing, etc.  Boy, that’s a lot of functional areas for just a few hands.

So for a while, unless you are well-funded, you may have no choice.  You’ll wear a ton of hats, and do a lot of lower ROI things

SAASTR EVENTS

Don't miss it when SaaStr Europa heads to London in 2023! 

On 6-7 June, we'll be brining together 3,500+ of the very best together in SaaS for the 4th edition of SaaStr Europa, and this time we'll packing our bags for London! 

Don't miss early bird tickets from $299 before prices go up 31- October. 

DEAR SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin · Thursday, October 27, 2022 | Q&A, Sales

Unfortunately, as a non-CEO, non-founder of an acquired start-up … you have almost no ability to really negotiate.  You can try a little, but it’s rough.

Overall, your ability to negotiate in M&A in any context, in any job, is based on your ability to walk for something better, or just walk. Unless you are the CEO, you have limited options here.

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

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