So we have a rule at SaaStr Annual — No Repeats.

We don’t want speakers back at least for 2 years, ideally longer, and we want content that is fresh and unique to us.

But then over the years, we’ve made some specific and intentional exceptions for “Fan Favorites”. 

For folks that the SaaStr community really, really wants to hear from live again.  The ones with the highest NPS.  We still require them to do new and novel content, but we bring the best back with new learnings, new inspirations, new ideas and new content.

So a partial list here of Fan Favorites coming back to 2023 SaaStr Annual, Sep 6-8 in SF Bay Area.

So one of our recent themes on SaaStr is that while things are still tougher for almost everyone that the go-go days of 2021, in at least some ways, they seem to have bounced off the bottom and are at least getting easier than before:

Top Cloud and SaaS stocks are up 31% this year.  Now they still are way down from their 2021 highs.  But +31% is real.

Top Cloud and SaaS stocks are trading at 15x ARR or more. 

And top quartile is approaching 10x ARR.  Now this is nothing like the 2021 days.  Nothing.  But it’s way off the lows of earlier in the year.

Inflation appears to be down, and interest rates have mostly peaked.

We’re all macro experts in SaaS now!  But inflation does seem to be way down in the U.S. at least, and interest rates appear close to the maximum.

So some of you are just crushing it now, things are great.  Or things are little more challenging thaN the Go Go Days of 2021, but still just fine.  That’s great.  Good for you then.

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.

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In my experience — Yes, probably.  

As a founder, you can back out of a term sheet if something is off, or even if you just get another offer you prefer.

There is a lot of drama around broken term sheets.

Mostly around VCs backing out, not founders, though.  VCs backing out of signed term sheets is fairly rare for well known, traditional VC funds.  But fairly common from non-“Sand Hill”/SF-style investors who often don’t see a signed term sheet as a full commitment to close.

Here’s the thing — term sheet are term sheets.  That’s it.

95% of the time, they are non-binding statements of intent. For both sides. They may imply more, but they are non-binding in almost all cases, at least legally.

Is it considered bad form to bail on a signed term sheet?

Yes. For both sides.

No doubt.

I’d like to think reputations get damaged over these things. But they don’t.

So I’ve been introduced to a few up-and-coming sales folks recently and the pattern goes like this.   get a response back fast:

”The role sounds interesting but I’ve got an offer pending right now for $120k OTE”

Hmmm.  

Do you know how many folks at that sales org hit quota?  

What the average attainment is?

What are the odds you’ve make that?

It’s OK to take risks, and you should in your career, but at least know how the org performs.

So many sales reps I talk to have no idea what the real odds are they’ll achieve that high OTE they are attracted to.

Then the other day I had a similar convo with a “Stretch” VP of Sales.  “I really need a $300k OTE”, he said.

I see.  

I had a few ideas for him, place where I was sure he could make that or more if he leaned it.  But I wasn’t sure they’d give him a nominal $300k OTE.  He wasn’t willing to settle for a lower OTE.

”OK I said, but how close to that $300k OTE did you actually get at your last jobs?”  Not remotely close, he said.

And finally, I recently caught up with a VP of Sales that left a job where he was making a stunning $700,000+ a year.

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So I’m trying to learn as much about AI as everyone else is. 

Some areas really work. 

Some are full of hallucinations. 

And some, especially in the enterprise, seem about broken promises at the moment. 

We’ll see. 

I’m bullish but also just … watching and learning.

We ran one small experiment at SaaStr. 

We ran our YouTube headlines through Jasper and our thumbnails through another service.

What did we see?

Kind of interesting. 

We saw instant improvement from running the exact same YouTube content through AI for the description and thumbnails.

#1:  “Don’t do any VC investments your first year.  Take your time”

Sound advice. But would have missed 4 unicorns if I had. I would have missed leading seed investments into Pipedrive, Algolia, Talkdesk, Parklet/Greenhouse, and more.

#2: It’s Hopeless. Let’s Throw in the Towel.

Yes, it was. But quitting doesn’t help. And by not quitting, it ended up not being hopeless. We had customers. Just not enough of them.  That was something, not nothing.

3.  Don’t start that start-up, it won’t work, there aren’t enough customers, and the technology doesn’t work.

All true, based on conventional knowledge. We sold that company (my first start-up as a founder) for $50,000,000 12.5 months later.

4.  Don’t join that start-up, it’s not enough money.

True, but it got the journey going. Do things that accelerate your growth and career. Worry less about a few nickels and dimes today, at least if you can.

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