So the Wall Street Journal had a great piece summarizing the “liquidity crunch” in private equity.  Liquidity (cash from exits — M&A and IPO) is down so much, many are being forced to take out loans to generate cash.

As you can see below, liquidity last year was down 50% from the historical average of the past 10 years, and way, way down from the crazy 2021 peak.

Now to some extent, this is to be expected. Private Equity overall and Venture Capital in particular had an insane amount of “exits” for high dollar amounts in 2021. An IPO a week, and seemingly, a billion+ exit every week as well.  From Slack selling for $27 Billion to Salesloft for $2.5 Billion and so, so many more.

So 40% of our content at SaaStr Europa was on AI this year, and probably 33% of SaaStr Annual last year.  But it’s time for a full-fledged SaaStr AI Summit this year inside of SaaStr Annual.

You can join us just for AI Summit or all of Annual.  Either way, we’ll do something no one else is really doing — answering the fundamental questions for AI in SaaS and B2B:

• What’s working, what isn’t — and what will be working
• What you can really monetize in AI, and what you can’t
• What customers expect vs. what they are getting with AI
• Efficiency, and the Promises of AI

and so much more!

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

Can't keep up with your customers' requests for integrations? Read this Build vs. Buy: Native Integrations Guide.

So it’s hard to get a sense of just what is happening in SaaS. “B2B2B” remains in a big funk, with Salesforce projecting a decline to single-digit growth for the first time ever next year. And in the aggregate, public SaaS companies are growing the slower they have in history.

Median year-over-year growth for public SaaS companies has fallen below 20% for the first time.

And yet … both AI and the consumer economy remain strong:

• Databricks is growing 60% at $2.4B — and that’s up from 50% the year before!
• Canva just announced it’s growing 40% at $2.4B at its first Enterprise conference!
• Monday, selling mainly outside of tech, is growing 34% at almost $1B ARR

So the project management “plus” space is a broad one, and one with many leading players.  So it gives us a chance to take a pulse check on many segments of SaaS.

What can we learn, right now?

• Monday.com sells mainly to folks outside of tech — and because of that, it’s on fire. It’s up to an $11 Billion (!) market cap and almost $900m in ARR, growing 34%
• Atlassian has overlap with Asana, but a broader product portfolio.  At almost $5 Billion in ARR, it’s growing 30%.
• Asana has been hit the hardest. At $700m ARR, growth has bit hit the hardest, falling to 19% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter.  That’s down from 34% at $600m in ARR. A big fall.

A lot of folks I talk to think I am “good at marketing”. I’m not so sure about that. Like many founders, there is a slice of marketing I am good at — the part I’m passionate about. The rest? I’m pretty bad at it. I can’t send a decent campaign. I’m no good at steak dinners.

But one thing I’ve learned over the years, and many others have said it.

In the end, your biggest asset is your list.

Sam Blond, the former CRO at Brex with 15 years in tech sales, took the stage at SaaStr Europa 2024 to share nine easy sales concepts that so many get wrong. Sam got his first job in tech sales as an SDR for Jason Lemkin’s company, EchoSign, which later sold to Adobe and launched his career.

These nine sales concepts, when done correctly, will greatly improve your sales and sales teams.

• SaaStr 743: 9 Easy Sales Concepts So Many Get Wrong with Sam Blond, Former CRO Brex

• SaaStr 742: The Top 5 Secrets for Building Great Products with Leaders at Slack, Rubrik, and Grammarly

• SaaStr 741: The Future of AI in Sales with Gong’s CEO and Co-Founder Amit Bendov

Listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcasts

My biggest hiring mistake I've made past 5 years that I never made before:

I hired folks who didn't really, really, really want the job

So far, none have worked out

Real founders don't save anything for the swim back

When you are hot, you'll be able to hire and close a certain type of hire --

The mercenary

They've done it before, at least sort of.

They have the great resume.

And they are on the hunt for the next hot decacorn

The only thing is, once it ends up harder than it looks,

They quit

© SaaStr 2024

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