The Latest from SaaStr: There’s Always a Play To Do Better

THE LATEST FROM SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin · Tuesday, November 29, 2022 | Early, Leadership

So some of you are just crushing it now, things are great, you are Covid Beneficiaries, you already hit the plan for the quarter. Well, good for you.  Those are good times, indeed.

But there will be times when almost all of us not only struggle … but are just sort of out of ideas.  About how to do better.

Well, this is SaaS.  The revenue recurs.  So that means there’s always a play to do at least do better.

Here’s my best advice on what to do … when you don’t have any ideas on what to do.

INVESTING

By Jason Lemkin  · Wednesday, November 30, 2022 | Fundraising, Leadership

First, a whole bunch are simply “not on point”. The team, product, or space obviously does not meet the venture bar. Or, in many cases, the stage is simply off. A seed stage fund meeting a Series B investment opportunity is a waste of time. So Homebrew only met with 476 of these 1,600. Stage 1 of the funnel.

Then, another whole bunch just don’t look exciting.

Maybe the warm intro’er isn’t that impressive. Maybe you already met another similar company and didn’t love the unit economics. Etc. etc. You pass before the meeting based on pattern matching.

So like applicants to almost anything, including colleges and incubators, a lot of it is noise.

NEW PODCAST + VIDEO

By Amelia Ibarra  · Wednesday, November 30, 2022 | Human Resources, Leadership

“The hardest part of closing any deal is finding it,” says Lars Nilsson, VP of Global Sales Development at Snowflake. Over his 35+ year career, Nilsson has managed 100+ Sales Development Representatives (SDR) across four continents, six countries, and ten cities.

The role of an SDR requires one to be in the trenches—prospecting, qualifying, and cold calling, so your sales team can focus on selling, negotiating, and closing.

SAASTR SCALE

Join our next, FREE MEGA DIGITAL EVENT, SaaStr Scale 2022! Dec 7!!

Featuring:

• CEO HubSpot
• VPS Rippling
• CMO Samsara
• SVP DigitalOcean
• CMO Checkout
• CPO Checkout
• SVP Celonis
• CMO typeform
• CRO wiz_io
• CEO attentiveHQ
• + much more!!

The answer is..it depends. It's a great stop gap when you're swamped with core product features, but there are many drawbacks to relying on this strategy long term.

We put together a guide that compares the two approaches across their impact on product adoption, your ability to upsell, feature flexibility, and more.

Tip the payment scales in your favor by being one of the first to unlock exclusive early access to BlueSnap's 2023 Payment Predictions eBook.

© SaaStr 2022

255 Kansas, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94103

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