So SaaS and Cloud are stronger than ever — overall. Per Gartner, SaaS spend is still growing +20% with an estimated total spend of a stunning $300 Billion in 2025.

And yet … price increases, AI, and the Cloud leaders are taking up more and more of that budget.  So times are also harder at the same time.

For the first time, the average public SaaS company is now growing less than 20%.

That’s crazy down from 2021. In 2021 into early 2022, the average Cloud leader was growing +67%. That’s so high, it’s almost unimaginable today.  It almost sounds like fiction.

The best price. The world's largest SaaS conference.

 Early bird tickets end Oct 31

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr over the years about how to hire a great VP of Sales — and how to course-correct if you’ve made a mis-hire.

The two fastest-to-surface signs of a mis-hire:

• No one great joins them in the first 30 days. Every great VP of Sales has 1 or 2 folks that want to follow them from their last role.  And also has been quietly recruiting a few great folks anyway to join them at their next role.  Great VPs of Sales, even stretch VPs, are constantly networking to build the team they need both now — and later. 
• Nothing gets better in 1 sales cycle.  You don’t always need to see magic in your VP of Sales, especially at first.  Revenue doesn’t have to double in 1 sales cycle. But you do need to see things get better. OK, but some of you will still give them … more time.  Even if they sort of fail the above test.  Your investors will probably encourage you to give them more time.  You may not have the energy to deal with it.

So let me tell you the #1 sign a VP of Sales just isn’t going to make it:  It’s when they Hide from a Miss.

Up Next: Wednesday, October 30th @ 10AM

Topic: What Really Matters in SaaS in 2025

Speakers: Dave Kellogg, Executive in Residence at Balderton Capital

& Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder at SaaStr

Workshop Wednesdays is our weekly series where we’ll be bringing some of the best SaaStr speakers to you LIVE, every Wednesday. 

Each workshop will be hosted in a live, interactive 30-minute format at 10am Pacific each and every Wednesday. This workshop will be 100% LIVE, not pre-recorded, and will be hosted in an, interactive 30-minute format, including Q&A.

I’ve invested almost $200m as part of SaaStr Fund / 2024.

A few top mistakes founders make:

#1. Not making cold email truly great. Don’t ask to pick someone’s brain, or coffee. Make the cold email so great, you’d want to invest based on just it alone.

#2. Not researching a VC enough. Is this the type of investments they do? They right stage? Etc.

#3. Hiding anything. VCs don’t expect investments to be perfect. But they are spooked by surprises. Don’t hide the bad stuff. Instead, just share it, and explain how you’re addressing it.

#4. Claiming you have no competition. Everyone does, at least for budget. This makes you look less than savvy about your market.

#5. Not having a great CTO. It’s just too competitive today. No one wants to fund a “great business guy” without an A+ CTO there as well.

#6. Not growing quickly enough. VCs can only invest in folks that can hit $100m+ in revenue or more in 7–10 years. If you’re not even close to that pace, 99% of VCs won’t invest.

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

Take an interactive walkthrough of real-time financial dashboards, automated billing, subscription lifecycle management, and advanced analytics specifically designed for SaaS businesses.

Want to partner with SaaStr? Click here to Sponsor our events, podcasts, newsletters and more.

We’re just beginning to slot speakers for 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay!!  More to come later in the year, but already look forward to incredible, unique deep dives with CEOs of DropBox, Descript, Flock Safety, and 100s more!

And you can grab Early Bird Annual 2025 tickets for as low as $549 (!) here.

In advance, we wanted to take a look at some of our Fan Favorite speakers.  David Sacks spoke at SaaSr Annual #01, and #10, and 3 other times between! The deep dives here.

#1. The SaaS Org Chart by Series with David Sacks, Co-founder and General Partner at Craft Ventures.

A classic and great deep dive in terms of how to scale your teams, headcount, and orgs.

© SaaStr 2024

644 Emerson St. Suite 200, Palo Alto, CA, 94301

If you'd like to stop receiving the SaaStr Daily, click here