Hey everyone -

Not long now until SaaStr Annual 2023! 

This is gonna be epic, September 6, 7 and 8th in the SF Bay Area. 

If you feel like everyone you know in SaaS is going to be there - 

that's because they are ;) 

The very best speakers, CEOs, revenue leaders, investors and 12,000 of your best SaaS friends will all be coming to SaaStr soon for the biggest SaaS event of the year! 

Don't miss your chance to grab one of the very last passes here before they're gone.

So times haven’t been tough for everyone in SaaS the past 12-18 months.  If you were in AI, if you were in hospitality, if you were in parts of e-commerce, if you were in mobile … things mostly have been Pretty Normal.

But other segments have been hit with a sledgehammer.  

In particular, folks impacted by The Great App Layoff, where 10% or more of many orgs’ app stack was cut.

Many SaaS leaders in sales and marketing spaces saw growth go from 100% to 10%, from 50% to 0%. I do think we’re mostly over it, although Godard Abel, CEO of G2, and I had a deep dive on the topic the other day, and they aren’t quite seeing an end to the marketing slowdown yet on their side.

Discover how three breakout SaaS companies scaled from an idea to hundreds of employees and $1B+ valuations, all while living their values along the way. 

Notion COO Akshay Kothari, Motive CEO and Founder Shoaib Makani, and CEO and Co-Founder of Incredible Health Iman Abuzeid share the secrets of ensuring their company-centered values and purpose remained an anchor amidst hypergrowth. Moderated by Laura Weidman Powers, Operating Partner at Base10 Partners. 

As we dive into these three highly successful companies, we’ll talk about their values, the process of creating them, and the right time for founders to create their own values. 

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

Win customers by creating compelling offers with flexible pricing, billing, and bundling options with end-to-end automation. Learn more at the SAP booth in the Sponsor Hall, Hanger West! 

It varies of course, but roughly for bigger funds:

• Funds tend to invest in 20–40 startups over 2–4 years. Big and tiny funds may do more, but in general, this is the sweet spot.
• Funds use about 40% of their fund for initial, first checks
• They earmark another 40% for follow-on checks into later rounds in those investments over the next 2–10 years
• And 20% of the fund is used for fees and expenses, at least initially

So a $200m VC fund might actually only use $80m for initial checks into say 25 startups.

Another way to see the math is that most funds put 1%-2% of “the fund” into each investment — initially. Sometimes a bit more, but not too much more.

“My App Stack” is a new series where we dig in with top CMOs, CROs, CTOs and CEOs on just what apps they’re really using to run their business.  I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader.  Last week we had a great one with Carin van Vuuren up, CMO of Greenhouse.

This week we have marketing guru Sydney Sloan, previously CMO at Salesloft and now CMO at compliance leader Drata!

John Humphrey, former head of data platform product at MailChimp and current principal at mfact, joined SaaStr live at Workshop Wednesday to discuss three data myths and how to debunk them.

The first myth is that working with data is hard, but John emphasizes that anyone can start working with data by leveraging their business knowledge.

The second myth is the belief that everything needs to be done perfectly, but John argues that improvement, not perfection, is key.

The third myth is the notion of scarcity, and John highlights the resources and solutions available for data analysis.

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.

So I get a lot of podcast requests, and I think podcasts are great.  They are an incredible way to communicate with your customers and prospects.  Even if the absolute number of listeners and viewers is low, the quality is often high.

Yet, folks tend to do the ask … wrong.

Let me tell you what folks do wrong (and folks like Harry Stebbings never do):

• Don’t drop me on an EA to schedule.  Harry doesn’t do it, I don’t do it.  It always ends up being a headache and a hassle.  The EA can do the links, the Zoom, etc. but don’t make it hard on the guest.  Make it seem like you’ll make almost any time work.  Usually the EA is pretty mediocre and often drops the ball.  I basically give up in a headache of un-schedulable-ness.  Instead, just ask what works best for them, and give a few ideal times.
• Don’t ask me to rehearse or do a prep call.  I don’t have time.  Harry doesn’t ask you to rehearse, either.
• Don’t ask me to send over a headshot and a bio. Don’t you have Google?  This is a sign to me it’s all going to be a hassle.

Embrace it.  This is your chance to shine.

Not Truly Great Founders:

• Hide from the competition and an accurate description of the competition
• Don’t actually know the competition
• Don’t actually know the competition that well
• Say only negative things about the competition
• Say things about the competition that aren’t 100% correct
• Don’t really know the “10x Features” that help them beat the competition

But The Very Best Founders:

• Know the Competition Cold
• Know where and when they win, and when they don’t
• Know why they will win more and more over time
• Know the “10x Features” they have today to win — and the top 3–5 ones they plan on building to win even more
• Respect the competition

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