Hey everyone -

There's less than 30 Days Until the start off SaaStr Annual 2023 on September 6, 7 and 8. 

Don't Miss Out on the Biggest SaaS Event of the Year!

This year's Annual will bring together an impressive lineup of over 12,000 SaaS CEOs, founders, and investors, eager to share their insights and network with fellow industry leaders just like you.

If you're considering attending SaaStr, now's the time to act as this will be another SELL OUT SaaStr event. 

With so many amazing speakers, sessions, and networking opportunities, you'll have everything you need to take your business to the next level. Not to mention the chance to connect with some of the brightest minds in the industry and discover new partnership opportunities.

And the best news? You can still take advantage of our special offer to save 20% on your ticket when you register now – before it's too late!

So, don't miss out on this incredible opportunity! Register now to join us at SaaStr Annual 2023 in the San Francisco Bay Area this September.

We can't wait to see you there!

A few things that always work to drive down churn in the early days — and later:

First - make sure you have a strong Head of Customer Success … whose #1 goal is reducing churn.

Too many early stage VPs of Sales don’t have a strong “wing person” running customer success. Go help the founders make the hire if there isn’t one.

And importantly — resist the urge to have this Head of CS own upsells.

That may seem to help you, but it will lead to a de-focusing on driving down churn.

Next, go visit all your top customers in person, even once a quarter if you can.

Far fewer customers churn if you visit them in person.  

We’ve been saying this on SaaStr for 10+ years (!), and yet I see fewer and fewer sales execs flying to meet customers.  Yes, it was tough in 2020.  It’s not tough today.

Read your team’s emails and listen to their calls.

If you don’t, they’ll often say things that are just plain wrong. And lead to unnecessary churn.

A ways back during lockdown, we had some of the best founders in SaaS join us for SaaStr Summit: Bridging the Gap to buck people up.  

It was great, and incredible 20,000+ attended digitally.  But it was a short downturn!  

SaaS stocks actually rapidly recovered, even as lockdown and shutdowns lasted far longer than any of us thought it ever would at the time.

Among others, one of my favorite CEOs and founders, Jeff Lawson came back and shared his top learnings from tougher times.  

And now that I look back, the learnings actually are even more useful now than before, because this “downturn” we’re in for some has lasted far longer.

There was one point Jeff Lawson CEO of Twilio made that really resonated with me then, but faster forward to today, resonates even more:  

"If you don’t commit 100%, you never really make any money.  

You never really get anywhere."

This edition of the SaaStr Daily is sponsored in part by Mission Cloud

Whether you're getting started on your generative AI journey, or you're scaling your LLMs for business growth, Mission Cloud is here to help.

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday.com, and the founder of SaaStr.

Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, and co-founders and CEOs, Eran Zinman and Roy Mann of the wildly successful monday.com chat with Startup For Startup about ARR, NRR, CAC, and what it takes to beat the odds in a tougher environment. 

So there’s a strategy I really only see a handful of vendors using, but it really, really works IMHO.

It’s to turn your drip campaigns to prospects into an incredible weekly set of industry-leading content.

Drip-marketing is part of almost every start-up’s toolkit now, but it’s often just become an endless automated set of offers and product reminders.

And yes, do this.  

It’s often said only 10% of your prospects are really in market now, and ready to buy today, and that sounds right.

Guillaume “G”Cabane of HyperGrowth Partners, ex-VPM at Drift, Segment and Gorgias ran the actually numbers and found something similar. And that you can’t push it.

You can’t force prospects to buy faster.

This is such a great question.

I remember wondering the very same thing when my startup was acquired by Adobe.

Yes, I was a VP then, but there were SVPs and EVPs and Presidents and more above me.

Did they actually read their own emails?

I actually say next to my boss the first day and asked him that.

Yes, he had 2 administrative assistants and a team of 1000.

But he read and answered his own email.

Same with everyone else there.

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

Start earning payments revenue today, get straightforward and transparent pricing, chart a clear path for growth, and your merchants will love you. What are you waiting for?

Let’s step back a minute.

Most VC firms aren’t equal. 

Usually, the founding partners or the more senior partners control both (1) most of the profits, the “carry” and (2) own the management company, and keep more of the “fees”.

Even VC firms that say they have equal partnerships often aren’t truly equal.

First, they often set aside some carry for the original partners, and then split the rest.

Second, the management company is often still not owned equally.

© SaaStr 2023

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