Hey SaaStr Community,

So in one of the latest SaaStr surveys, we saw what a lot of us are feeling … it’s just hard to hit quota out there.

Only 18% of you were hitting the 70%+ quota attainment that high-performing sales teams generally try to hit.

And only 43% of you had sales teams that were hitting even 43% of quota attainment.

That left 58% of you with sales teams seeing 20%-40% quota attainment … or less.

That’s not healthy.

The best sales teams really do see 70% or more of their team hitting quota, or at least 70% of scaled reps (which often means 60% or so overall).  It just energizes everyone, and success builds on success.

So Snowflake is the high flier in Cloud. It’s one of the few still commanding a premium multiple in today’s world, and still growing at tremendous rates.

Snowflake is also a barometer of everything in SaaS and Cloud, because a significant amount of its revenue is consumption-based, at least in part.

So when CFOs and others tighten budgets, they’ll also try to buy less Snowflake.  Not none, just less.  AWS is seeing this, and so is Snowflake.

Growing remains jaw-dropping at 50% at $2.4 Billion in ARR, but customers are trying to reduce their spend or at least slow the increase in spend.  Which just makes sense.

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A non-exhaustive list:

Not listening. Too many reps just talk and talk, trying to get the pitch out. They miss a chance to learn what problem the prospect actually wants solved.

Not being an expert in the product. So many times I see this. In SaaS, the prospect is expecting the sales rep to be their guide, their expert on the product.

When they don’t know the product cold, all confidence is lost.  Maybe reps can get away with this a bit when they work for a clear #1 in the space, but beyond that, it’s a deal killer.

Not designing a true solution to their problem. Related to the prior 2 points. The best sales reps listen and hear what the prospect’s problem is in the space — and use the product to design a solution.

To solve the customers’ problem. Not just do an inflexible demo and send a price quote. An AE that can solve a top problem for me is worth their weight in gold. Truly solve it.

Pushing the most expensive edition too hard. Smaller and midsize companies like to start small, many times.  Push a prospect out of the comfort zone and the deal often just … never closes.

Over-qualifying. Yes, not every lead is suitable for every product. But sales reps that over-qualify alienate prospects that really would buy.  If they reached out on their own, the interest likely is genuine. No one enjoys just window shopping for SaaS apps.

There’s still seasonality to venture fundraising, even now with so much being done over Zoom.  Yes, deals get done every day in venture.  But especially in bigger partnerships, it’s just harder to get everyone together to approve a deal when some of the folks are on vacation.

If you are fundraising in June / July / August, maybe just be less dogmatic. More flexible. Put less pressure on timelines. Especially now, when fundraising is tougher across the board.

If you are pitching a larger firm, with a non-managing partner, it may indeed be hard to get a deal done fast. When the managing partner is in Greece.

The top partners can always get a deal done whenever they want, period. But the folks just below that level do need to socialize deals more. And even in small firms, consensus is often important. Even in 2 partner firms, often they won’t do a deal unless both partners agree.

I can do a deal myself in 20 minute.

First, bear in mind, start-up fundraising has gotten a lot harder than it’s been the past few years.  A lot harder. The latest Carta data summarizes it well:.

But while raise VC capital has gotten harder, the rough rules in B2B / SaaS haven’t really changed:

• Seed Round:
• $10k-$100k a month in revenue
• Growing 150% annually or more
• Strong founders, including strong technical co-founder

In 2020-2021, many SaaS startups faced a unique challenge. With teams spread across the globe, they had to find new working patterns to scale their businesses in a distributed environment.

Wiz, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies focused on security solutions, was one of them. The company helps enterprises internationally with contextual and actionable insights to secure their cloud infrastructure. 

Today, Wiz is one of the highest-valued private tech companies, at $10 billion, as announced in Feb 2023. CRO at Wiz, Colin Jones, shares how this traditional startup evolved, thrived and grew from 0 to $100 million in just two years. 

• SaaStr 665: CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz’s $0 to $100M Journey with Wiz CRO Colin Jones
• SaaStr 664: What You Need to Change at $10M to Scale to $100M with Sameer Dholakia, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners

• SaaStr 663: 9 Things I Wish I Would Have Told My 2013 Self: Lessons Learned from 9 Years with Heap's Former CTO, Dan Robinson

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts or Spotify

I see way too many folks I knew that were very good, even great …

That then let themselves get bitter. They stop wanting to do the work. Start to blame others. The dumb CEO, those VCs, the term sheet that never came.

That’s the real enemy

It’s over if you let that happen

Part of being a successful founder is a commitment to excellence that many won’t understand or even see or perceive

To next-level excellence

This will create some friction among those without that commitment.

Actually, lots of friction.

Some startups explode out of the gate

Some take years to hit their stride, and then rocket

The IRR is in the former

The epic multiple is often in the latter

© SaaStr 2023

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