This edition of the SaaStr Weekly is sponsored by Stripe

2025 should be a good year for almost all leading public SaaS companies:

1/ Overall, any “downturn” ended in Q3’24, if there was one at all in their segment.

2/ Most SaaS leaders are now in market with an AI offering, and even if early and minor, it’s leading to a boost — because there is incremental budget there. See Salesforce, Asana, etc. All getting a boost even though it’s early for AI.

3/ Everyone got so efficient and at least non-GAAP profitable the past 2 years that they have room to hire and invest more. 

Some leaders with limited B2B2B exposure had a great 2024 (Samsara, Toast, Shopify, etc). Those with a lot of exposure often didn’t see a boost until the end of the 2024:

But 2025 should be better all across the board.

Not a magical time like 2021. But better.

So one of our themes (and memes) is that SaaS is Back. It’s a new SaaS, a different SaaS, and AI-fueled SaaS, but it’s back. Many of us never saw a downturn the past 24 months, but those in B2B2B often did.

But as Brian Halligan, chairman of HubSpot put it, the downturn where there was one, ended in Q3’24.

And as one small data point, that’s what we are seeing in early SaaStr Annual attendance data as well:

• Overall early 2025 attendance is up +156% of 2024
• December 2025 ticket sales were +181% of 2024.

We’ll see where it all ends up for SaaStr Annual 2025. No matter what, it will be bigger and better (and even more AI centric) than 2024.

We’re back.

And grab 20% OFF here on tickets for 2025 here!! Join the CEOs of Snowflake, HubSpot, Descript, Clio, Flock Safety, DropBox and CROs and CXOs of GitHub, Canva, Grammarly, and so, so much more at 2025 SaaStr Annual!

So I caught up the other day with the CTO of a leading SaaS company with tens of thousands of customers, growing quickly. AI is all over their homepage and website and comms.

I asked him about a particular use case for AI, and his answer shocked me a bit: “Honestly, our AI is basically still in beta. It’s rolled out to about a tenth of the customers we plan to, and the uses cases are pretty simple today.”

This is a leader in SaaS. And I think this is true at many leaders. ZoomInfo has rocketed to $100m in AI Copilot already. But it mostly is enhancing the classic product, near as I can tell. The same with other leaders. Agentforce at Salesforce is Benioff’s #1 push — but it’s literally just getting started.

Let’s be clear: a lot of SaaS and B2B apps are still experimenting with AI. Or at least, in the beta phase.

They’ve added some cool stuff, but in many cases it’s in a quiet beta, or only used a little bit, or just being rolled out, etc.  In vertical SaaS, many are even further “behind”.

So it’s in the air.

Not everywhere, not at every start-up or scale-up. But in general, overall, a sense that SaaS is back. It’s not just AI, although that’s part of it. It’s not just the big run-up in many SaaS stocks recently, although that’s a big part of it. It’s also data that suggests that for those that have seen a downturn, the bottom is behind us.

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This is classic VC and social media advice, and of course, so much truth in it

But … but … the world in SaaS has rapidly gone multi-product and platform the past 18+ months or so

Much more that even beforel

• Almost every SaaS leader I’ve invested in by $20m ARR has 2+ core products in market, but it’s more than that. They are building platforms.
• Platforms often require 4-5 core products to even be fully featured.

Have we lost interest in investing in the human side of sales?  

Not in hiring sales execs themselves, but in giving them more tools to be more “efficient”. It sort of seems like it.

AI has hardly rendered the sales professional obsolete.  Not yet, at least. Salesforce itself is hiring 2,000 sales execs this year to … sell its AI platform, AgentForce.

At most B2B companies, 35%-40%+ of the headcount is in sales and it’s often the largest functional area. And in any sales-led motion, you are going to just need more sales reps year after year to scale. Even now. Even in a more efficient world. Even with AI, as it is today.

And yet, there’s one thing that’s clearly changed the past 18 months. For the most part, folks seem done investing in more productivity for their sales humans. Unless it leverages AI.

2025 won’t be the death of the AE or even the SDR. But it may be all the investment goes into AI to supplement them, to turn them into “Mech AEs” — rather than adding tools to just make sales execs work better as humans.

We may be building Mech AEs.

Surrounded and powered by AI, making them much more powerful than before. 

The success rate for executive hires at high-growth SaaS companies can be surprisingly low – you’re often lucky if 50-60% of your management team works out long-term.

In a recent conversation between HubSpot Chairman and co-founder Brian Halligan and SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin, they shared their advice on what actually works when hiring VPs and building your SaaS executive team.

If you missed part 1 of this interview, you can catch up on their conversation about the current state of SaaS, evolving board meeting formats, and how AI is reshaping the industry.

• SaaStr 784: What Really Works When Hiring VPs and Executive Teams with HubSpot Co-Founder and Chairman Brian Halligan and SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin

• SaaStr 783: HubSpot Co-Founder and Chairman Brian Halligan on SaaS Markets and AI (Part 1)

• SaaStr 782: How to Train Your Sales Leaders: Key Learnings from HubSpot and BILL with Michelle Benfer

Listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcasts

In SaaS, you can fail extremely slowly.

The revenue recurs, after all.

That also gives you a lot of time to turn it around.

So if it feels too hard ... just focus on one big upgrade a quarter.

Your best idea or hire here likely will make a huge difference.

Even in the biggest companies,

CEOs often really only have 2-3 folks they can utterly, totally count on, 100% Being one of those 2-3 can be really hard.

By definition, you sort of get taken advantage of by being overloaded.

But it's where career magic happen.

© SaaStr 2025

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