The Top 10 Worst Pieces of SaaS Advice; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

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Hey SaaS Fans,

Advice is very context-sensitive, so take this advice with a grain of salt.

But I thought I’d take a stab at the Top 10 Pieces of Classic SaaS Advice … that, in my experience at least, are usually Just Plain Wrong. Not always, but usually.

#1 Ask VCs for Advice When You Want Money, Money When You Want Advice”. I don’t know who started this, but they must be smarter and more perceptive than me. I get asked for advice a lot. I get asked for money a lot. I have 60 hours a week. Please help me really know which you want. Especially the money part. I probably will pass on investing in you if I don’t know you want money.

The top 10 worst pieces of SaaS advice

- Jason

New This Week

5 Interesting Learnings from HubSpot at $1 Billion in ARR

HubSpot IPO’d way back in 2014, early in this great SaaS / Cloud cycle. In many ways, they got to $1B ARR the hardest way. with a $10k ACV, selling to SMBs, with constant (not increasing) pricing and ACV.

Here are the five interesting learnings -->

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

Okta: Best-of-Breed Apps Are Still Winning

A question a lot of us are thinking on these days is … is “the suite” back? If you talk to leaders from Hubspot to Datadog to next-gen ones like Salesloft and more, you’ll hear one thing … and see it in the numbers. Buyers want to buy more from vendors they trust.

And yet, suites can rise even as single solution vendors can as well. The Cloud is just so huge. -->

From Initial Traction to Initial Scale (~$10M in ARR): The Hardest Phase. But — The Cavalry is Coming.

The hardest phase of SaaS, at least for the founders, is the phase from Initial Traction ($1-$2m in ARR + 80%-100% YoY growth) to the next phase — Initial Scale.

Once you hit this point, you have a brand, you have a fully baked team -->

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

Zoom Got a Huge Covid Boost. But … WebEx and the Rest Didn’t.

The Covid boost we’ve seen has been huge in SaaS and Cloud, but it hasn’t always been even, especially for folks that aren’t #1 in their space.

Some of the best data come from Adobe and Adobe Sign here -->

What It Takes to Really Raise Capital in 2021 with Point Nine Capital

Christoph Janz, Founding Partner at Point 9 Capital, gives us his data-backed insight into what investors are looking for in the year ahead. He simplifies and distills the answers to attracting investors to fit onto the back of a napkin.

Watch now -->

Hot Jobs

•	Snowflake is seeking a dynamic, high energy, and results-driven Director of Demand Generation. This individual will coach a team of individual contributors while owning vertical and solution program strategy, customer targeting, database segmentation, and program implementation.

•	Gorgias is looking for a VP of Marketing to get them to $100m ARR and build a marketing machine that covers the full customer lifecycle, from awareness to expansion.

Latest Podcast Episodes

423

The Misunderstanding of Enterprise Marketing and What it Really Takes to Scale with Menaka Shroff, Director of Marketing @ Google

424

How To Raise Your Next Round. What It Takes to Really Raise Capital in 2021 with Christoph Janz, Co-Founder and Partner @ Point Nine Capital

425

5 Interesting Learnings from Atlassian at $2B in ARR with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play Music or Spotify

@jasonlk Tweets of the Week

Paypal is worth $300 billion today

It really wasn't that long ago it was founded and run by a bunch of folks you can follow on Twitter

Go Long

Do you have a good boss?

Is your company growing reasonably quickly?
Are you well paid?
Do you have a path to growth?
Are you valued?

If Y to 1-5 Then stop searching, thinking, and wondering if something is better

And commit more to where you are

BigCos don't underestimate the scrappy competition

Not at all

They know it, they track it, they get it

It's just you usually have 3-4 years to run before you are enough of a threat for them to allocate enough resources to really compete back