Hey SaaStr Community,

In the latest SaaStr Workshop Wednesday, Jessica Bartos of Salesforce Ventures did a great deep dive on the state of SaaS and venture in 2013.

One metric stood out to me I hadn’t seen presented before:just how many private SaaS companies (i.e., startups) have crossed $100,000,000.

It’s only 150.

But it makes sense.  150 x $100m = $15B+ in spend, probably more like $30B in spend.  Getting to $100m ARR in SaaS is pretty doable if you can get to $10m ARR and are growing 60%.

I wrote a version of this post just a few months back, but since then, the venture markets in many ways have deteriorated further.  Cloud stocks are back to where they were 3 years ago, but that’s with tremendous revenue growth since then. 

Valuations are down a stunning 75% from their peak last year. It took a quarter or two to sink in in venture, but now the effects are clear.

In an established category, customers will pre-pick one of the Top 2–3 vendors based on brand, market share and research. Well before they even talk to a sales rep. The one they will tentatively decide to go with is the one they have the most positive experience or association with going into the calls.  But that doesn’t mean they won’t at least potentially change their mind.

The #2 choice really can steal a deal from the #1 choice if they do a much better perceived job solving the prospect’s problem.  Sometimes, if you’re the #2 choice, it’s just a CYA call.  But a lot of times even if there is a bias toward the #1 choice, the discovery is real.  This is where a great rep at the #2 choice can steal a deal from the de facto #1 choice.

Security should be seamless, scalable, affordable, and effective.

hCaptcha Enterprise protects against fraud and abuse, both human and automated, with a powerful security ML platform you can enable in minutes.

Test them out with a free traffic analysis to see why startups and big tech alike use hCaptcha. Get a demo today!

So everyone knows Salesforce, founded in 1999, originally to manage your salesforce.

But there’s another SaaS leader that almost everyone in B2B software also uses also founded in 1999 — to manage their events.

Cvent. It’s still around, too. A lot of it is a bit old, and hard to use, and expensive. But after taking a hit from lockdown, it bounced back, IPO’d for the second time via a SPAC, and today is at $650,000,000 in ARR, growing 20%, with a health 21% EBITDA margin.

And its founder … is still CEO even today.

And Cvent may be acquired for $4 Billion, a premium to its current $3.6 Billion market cap.

It took me a while to understand the power of events and field marketing.   And yes, there’s a lot of irony here given that we’ve been doing SaaStr Annuals since 2015 (!). 

But $1 Trillion a year is spent on business events.  Yes, one trillion.

Perhaps even more importantly, events represent 24% of the average B2B marketing budget.

One thing is clear — events are expensive, and budgets are under more scrutiny than ever.  Putting on your own event is expensive — and complicated.  Exhibiting at someone else’s event is expensive — and bounded.  And the pipeline you generate often takes a while.  Pipe from events rarely closes as fast as those amazing in-bound leads that found you on your own and are ready to buy today.  (It’s just, there are only so many of those).

But the thing is, the right events, done right, can be magical.  Why?

A few thoughts to excel as someone new to SaaS sales:

Really learn the product cold. As fundamentally as you can.  This really, really works.  Even if you aren’t really that good at the rest of sales.  Every prospect and customer is owed a true solution sale approach. Sales is there to close a deal, yes, but that should just be 10% of it — 90% of the “work” should be to solve your prospects’ and customers’ problems.

You can only solve a customer’s problems if you know the product you are selling cold. Train yourself on it 10x more than whatever training your company provides. Live it, breathe it. Own it. So many reps don’t do this. They can only answer the basic 5–6 questions about the product. Own the top 100 customers, the top 50 workflows, the top 200 corner cases, the top 100 objections. And you will become a sales magician.

Treat each prospect as a VIP. No matter how big or small. There is only so much time in the week, but if you treat a $1k deal with the same respect as a $50k deal … magic just happens. Small businesses care just as much about their businesses as big ones. Probably much more. 

Join 1,000 SaaS CEOs, Founders, Revenue Leaders and Investors at the very first SaaStr APAC in Singapore, happening very soon on Feb 22-23. 

Tickets are nearly sold out with less than a hundred left. 

Don't miss this chance to be apart of this inaugural event that will bring together the global SaaStr community for 1.5 days of:

• Content: Some of the best speakers from around the world will be bringing the best in SaaS to Singapore. From Amplitude to Xero - there's lots to learn.
• Networking: Already 200+ attendees have started networking pre-event and will meet 1:1 and in small groups during the event to learn to scale, together. 
• Opening night at the top of Marina Bay Sands: Oh yeah - this will be loads of fun. We're kicking off SaaStr APAC with Sequoia India and Southeast Asia, and hosting an Opening Night VIP Reception at LAVO Rooftop Marina Bay. There will be tons of great people to meet, food, drinks and new SaaS friends. 
• So many great companies to interact with and learn from. From our lineup of internationally represented sponsors, to 100+ Investors attending, this will event will go by fast with all the content there is, and all the people there are too meet.  

Get your tickets before they're gone!

Every week, more and more companies are having big layoffs. As news of layoffs continues, many are left wondering what happened and how to shift course.

Many startups missed 2022 revenue goals and are forecasting slower growth for 2023, especially compared to the explosive growth of teams and revenue during the Boom of 2021 and early 2022. 

In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, Founders Fund Investor Sam Blond sits down with the SVP of Sales at Modern Health, Hannah Willson, to discuss how companies can adapt to the current sales environment and how to correct course when you don’t have a right-sized sales team. 

Sage is looking for a Sales Admin Specialist to input, update, and maintain customer and/or customer order data across Sage’s portfolio of products and platforms.

Bee is seeking an Account Manager who will join their BEE Business Unit and will be responsible for expanding sales into Mid-Market and Enterprise accounts.

• SaaStr 633: Why You Want to Develop Product Painkillers, Not Vitamins with DigitalOcean CPO Gabe Monroy

• SaaStr 632: CRO Confidential: How To Adapt Your Sales Strategy To The Current Sales Environment with Sam Blond and Hannah Willson, SVP of Sales at Modern Health

• SaaStr 631: What Is Going On In Venture Capital in 2023 with SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin and 20VC Host Harry Stebbings

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts or Spotify

I have 1 investment where I haven't gotten an investor update yet in 2023 Gotta be honest, a bit worried about that one

The one hire I don't need, and none of my portfolio cos need, is a "Strategist"

I know at certain stage in many folks' career, that's what they want to do Advise on strategy more than do work themselves

No criticism

But most startups only need a few hours of this at a time

Products I thought were super cool:

Tonal

Juicero

Jibo

Fisker

Karma

Facebook Portal

Bird and Lime

This is why I stick to B2B

© SaaStr 2023

255 Kansas, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94103

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