5 Interesting Learnings from Datadog at $700,000,000 ARR; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

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Hey SaaS Fans,

SaaStr University Spring Semester is THIS WEEK. Don't miss the event, live on Wednesday, Jan 27th with expert speakers from ActiveCampaign, Salesloft, Snowflake, Shopify, Zoom and much more.

It's 100% free. View the full agenda and sign up here.

New This Week

5 Interesting Learnings from Datadog at $700,000,000+ ARR

Datadog became the great darling of developers and devops years ago, and never stopped pushing on the accelerator. It’s expanded its product portfolio with Logs, APM, and more to build an incredible observabillity engine approaching $1B ARR.

Here are the five interesting learnings -->

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This edition of the SaaStr weekly is sponsored in part by Divvy

Why Lead Velocity Rate (LVR) Is The Most Important Metric in SaaS

Sales is variant, and sales pipelines have big data quality issues — and worse, sales as a metric is a lagging indicator. In fact, your monthly sales tell you about the past.

Here is why LVR is a better metric -->

6 Types of Bad Behavior Sales Reps Bring Out When They Are Struggling to Hit the Plan

Your sales manager is under great pressure to increase sales. At a recent meeting of the entire sales staff, this person said, “We have to hit our numbers no matter what it takes!”

Does emotional appeal change your way of dealing with customers? -->

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This edition of the SaaStr weekly is sponsored in part by PandaDoc

From Taxjar: Three Things SaaS Founders Learn the Hard Way

Mark Faggiano, CEO and Founder of Taxjar, shares 3 things he learned the hard way and how other SaaS founders can avoid making the same mistakes.

Be honest. Even when it hurts in the short term. -->

Updated: Mastering the Art and Science of Product-Led Growth With Gainsight

Mickey Alon, the creator of Gainsight PX, and Ciara Peter, VP Product at Gainsight, cover the principles of a product-led growth strategy.

Watch now -->

Hot Jobs

•	Team SaaStr is on the search for a Head of Digital Marketing, Head of Digital Events, Senior AE and more. Details here of who we're hiring for.

•	Swagup, a SaaS startup streamlining swag creation and distribution for brands, is looking for a veteran sales leader to accelerate their growth.

Latest Podcast Episodes

419

How To Collaborate, Manage & Work with Developers with Jeff Lawson, CEO and Co-Founder @ Twilio and Jason Lemkin, CEO @ SaaStr

420

Mastering the Art and Science of Product-Led Growth with Mickey Alon, Founder, and CTO @ Gainsight PX and Ciara Peter, VP, Product @ Gainsight

421

11 tips to Build Stronger Relationships with Customers with Jason Lemkin, CEO @ SaaStr

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play Music or Spotify

@jasonlk Tweets of the Week

As an investor your role is fairly minor in end, other than capital & mentorship

With 1 big exception

Most raw first-time founders do not have network of great VPs to draw on, let alone meet with

Give them 1-2 great hires

That does move the needle in the $0.1m-$10m ARR phase

Twilio has rocketed to a $60B market cap -- up from $3B just after its IPO!

5 Interesting Learnings at ~$800m in ARR:

It's also blown past $2B in ARR, still growing 52% YoY! 5 Interesting Learnings both today, and as it just crossed its first $1B in ARR:

So Salesforce is the grandperson of SaaS software

The first to hit $100B in market cap
The first to do $10B+ in ARR (and only so far)

And yet, in many ways we know >less< about Salesforce that we used to

It's not just a CRM anymore

5 Interesting Learnings: