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Hey SaaStr Community,

For at least 60%-80% of us, times are at least tougher than a year ago. Later stage venture capital has evaporated, and budgets are at least under more scrutiny. Not for all of us, but most.

So what do you do?

Well, at a practical level, many SaaS companies are doing a Strategic Sales & Marketing Retreat. While I get it, it’s important to understand the trade-offs.

A Lot of You Are Doing a “Strategic Retreat” in Sales & Marketing. That’s Flawed.

What’s a Strategic Sales & Marketing Retreat?

First, you tell marketing to only focus on initiatives that bring in revenue now, this quarter.
Second, you slow or stop sales hiring.
Third, you often increase quotas in sales.

This “flash diet” does work for many SaaS companies, at least the ones with mini-brands that are at scale. At least, at first.

THE STRATEGIC RETREAT

Yes, There’s Lots of “Dry Powder” in Venture Today. But There is Zero Pressure to Deploy It.

So 2023 is a whole near world in venture.

2022 was sort of a tale of 2 worlds. At the start of 2022, things were still part of the Boom Times of 2021. Unicorns were minted daily and weekly, and valuations were sky high. By late Q1, it was over.

And things just got tougher and tougher as the year went on. Growth rounds essentially stopped.

So far, things aren’t any better in 2023.

Yes, There’s Lots of “Dry Powder” in Venture Today. But There is Zero Pressure to Deploy It.

But they are arguably calmer.

Now, there’s just one point I think it’s important for founders to understand in 2023, and it’s both important and non-obvious:

Yes, there is tons of “dry powder” in venture today. But now, with one exception, there is zero pressure to deploy it, to invest it. None.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

This edition of the SaaStr weekly is sponsored in part by Payhawk

5 Interesting Learnings from Docebo at $145,000,000 in ARR

So there’s a quiet SaaS success story you probably don’t know much about, but can learn a lot from.

It’s Docebo.

It’s a leader in a pretty crowded space (Learning Management Systems) with dozens of top vendors.

And yet …

It’s worth $1.1 Billion today, doing $145,000,000 in ARR. It’s growing 40%+ on a constant currency basis. It’s cash-flow positive, and … it only burned $14,000,000 to get there.

5 INTETESTING LEARNINGS

Last Call for SaaStr APAC 2023 Sponsorships

If you missed the news, our very first SaaStr APAC event taking place in Singapore just got a major upgrade!

With demand over the past two weeks doubling our initial set of attendees- we’re now tracking to 750-1,000 attendees for SaaStr APAC 2023. (Final numbers may be even higher as we get closer!)

WOW. An incredible response from our global community for the very first SaaStr event of its kind in Asia-Pacific. And with this boost of attendees, we’re upgrading to a much larger venue so that we can host as many of our SaaStr Community in person for SaaStr APAC.

It's also exiting times for APAC as its the last call for Sponsorships to SaaStr APAC, as we'll be reach our Sponsor capacity by the end of this week.

SAASTR APAC SPONSORSHIPS

Viola Capital: “Only Half of Unicorns Are Still Worth $1 Billion”

Calcalist summarized a report from Viola Capital in Israel on the state of Israeli unicorns. Their analysis? Half aren’t unicorns anymore.

This sounds about right to me, and the data they looked at is interesting:

40% of unicorn rounds were led by “one-off” investors, tourists. This makes the valuations suspect.
Israeli startup funding in 2H’22 was back to the pace of 2019. This is probably what we’re all really seeing, or going to see. The Covid Boom is now well in the rear view mirror.

MORE HERE

The Right Hand Man / Woman Rule When You Hire a New VP

When you hire a new VP, how much free reign do you give them in hiring? Do you just let them building their teams? Do you remain deeply involved in the process?

Founders and CEOs have very different answers here.

Personally, when I have a truly great VP, I do interview all their hires, and when I see issues, provide that feedback. But I let them hire who they want. And when I have a stretch VP, still learning, I still back them 100%.

But realistically, I tell them about 50% of the hires they propose making aren’t a fit. I’m more involved.

But however much you’re involved, I’ve realized there is sort of a golden run when you hire a new VP.

THE GOLDEN RULE

Fractional CROs and CMOs: The Only Times I’ve Ever Seen Them Work

So the market is flooded with folks that are now “Fractional CROs” and “Fractional CMOs”. We’ve had Fractional CFOs for a very long time and perhaps they inspired the trend.

But Fractional CFOs are different. They usually come in and handle compliance and oversight for an existing finance team that perhaps lacks the seasoned experience to handle models, venture capital and debt, prepare for an audit, etc. But a Fractional CFO usually comes into a team that already has a strong or at least decent full-time VP or Director of Finance, Controller, etc.

In my experience, this breaks model breaks down with a “Fractional CRO” or “Fractional CMO”. For sure, if you have a strong existing sales team that needs some mentorship, I can see a Fractional CRO working. Although the ones that actually do this rarely use the title — they are happy just being mentors, consultants, etc.

THE ONLY TIMES

LET'S WATCH

Video of the Week

True Story: What Breaks Going from $0-$100M ARR in Less Than 2 Years with Wiz CRO Colin Jones

If there’s one thing in business (and life) that’s guaranteed, it’s that things will break. When you’re preparing for hyper-growth, the question isn’t “what will break?” but rather “what doesn’t break?”.

After scaling from $0 to $100,000,000 in two years, Colin Jones, CRO of Wiz, has a fair share of experience with things breaking.

We sat down with Jones to learn about his experience and his perspective shift from proactively worrying about things breaking to being prepared and reactively finding a way to make things work again.

WATCH NOW