So it’s tougher out there for many of us, but many Cloud and SaaS leaders are still growing at epic rates, even if not quite at the torrid rates of 2021.

SaaStr favorite Monday.com is one of them. 

It’s crossed $640,000,000 in ARR, growing a stunning 50%!  Wow.

5 Interesting Learnings:

#1.  $50k+ Customers (Their “Enterprise” Customers) Are Growing the Fastest, at 75%.  Like Asana, Monday’s biggest customers are its fastest-growing segment.  That doesn’t mean huge enterprise customers, but here it’s their $50k+ ACV ones, which now represent 28% of revenue, up from 22% just a year ago.  That’s a fast tilt to being more upmarket.

So leading growth stage VC Iconiq has published its latest and very detailed Definitive Guide to Sales Compensation here. 

It’s very detailed and oriented more toward growth-stage scale-ups — but it’s excellent.  Everyone should have a read.

My top take-aways:

#1.   Yes, 50/50 Base/Variable for AEs remains the standard, and 4x-5x+ Quota:OTE ratio remains the standard.  Corners were cut in the boom times of 2021, but we are back to sane sales models.  Enterprise Quota:OTE ratios are higher (5x+), SMB is a bit lower, but at the end of the day, you need to close 4x-5x what you take home.

#2.  Renewals, if they are done by sales, are paid out at about 40% of an initial commission.  A complex topic here of when it makes sense to have sales involved in renewals, but helpful to see they get about 40% of the commission of a new deal.

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

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At nine figures in revenue and 550 people, the CEO of Lattice, Jack Altman, has seen every stage of building a startup. 

In last week’s Workshop Wednesday — held every Wednesday at 10 a.m. PST — Altman talks more in-depth about his viral tweet storm, sharing the eight things you think as a first-time founder that usually aren’t true. 

There is one common factor, that founders know, but often lose track of in their pitch: every VC, at any stage, is looking for outliers. No matter the price or how early or late.

Your pitch, your team, your metrics, your market position, your vision, your TAM, your everything, should honestly and transparently but aggressively and positively show how you can be an outlier.

It is hard to make money as a VC, as odd as that may sound. You generally need several unicorns per fund, and 1 per year, to truly do well.

Now, VCs have a benefit in that not every single investment has to be a unicorn. They do have the benefit of a portfolio approach, which founders don’t. But 1 or more from each “batch”, from each, fund, does need to be to do extremely well.  Far more than just 1 for a bigger fund.

The risk VCs try to take is that some signals of a potential unicorn are there. And then, they are OK if it doesn’t always pan out. They have 10–20 bets or more per fund, after all.

But VCs do not want to take the risk, though, on decent growth or metrics, but no signs it could be a unicorn.

So what that means first is, as soon as VC doesn’t believe you at least have a shot at being a unicorn, they need to move on. The meeting ends. The later the stage the VC is, the higher the % odds they need to believe it will happen. But the “conviction” is basically the same at every stage.

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

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Whether you’re part of a  startup ready to enter the market or working at an established business ready to launch a new product, it’s critical to understand how to approach your target audience. But simply sending out a few press releases isn’t enough –– you need a strategy to reach customers and prospects.

Sprig CMO Elizabeth Walton Egan believes that simply putting your product out there won’t attract customers: “If you build it, they will come does not work. It really is how you go find the right people, how you get that message out there, and start those conversations to get them to understand your product and buy your product.”

CEOs, CROs, and CXOS:

• Edith Harbaugh, Executive Chair & Co-founder @ LaunchDarkly
• Nowi Kallen, Managing Director @ Salesforce Ventures
• Spencer Kimball, CEO @ Cockroach Labs
• Joe Thomas, Co-founder and CEO @ Loom
• Sterling Snow, Former CRO @ Divvy
• Bill Magnuson, Co-founder, CEO @ Braze
• Christoph Janz, Partner@ Point Nine Ventures
• Parker Conrad, Co-founder & CEO @Rippling
• Sam Blond, Partner @ Founders Fund
• Harry Stebbings, Founder @ 20VC
• Daniel Dines, CEO & Founder @ UiPath
• Philippe Botteri, Partner @ Accel
• Guillaume Cabane, Co-Founder and President @ HyperGrowth Partner
• And more!

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