About 70% of SaaS Unicorns Are Newer Versions in Existing Categories; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

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Hey SaaStr Community,

It seems like start-ups are all about innovation. And they are. But how innovative should you be as a founder? Should you do something brand new? Or just reinvent a huge, existing category?

Zoom reinvented WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc.
Slack reinvented 100 versions of chat, including Hipchat, Basecamp’s product, etc.
Salesforce reinvented CRM for the web, but the paradigm was as old as software can be.

Now that there are 100+ public SaaS companies and unicorns, we can finally answer a question — is it better to start a company that remakes an existing category, or that creates a new one?

> About 70% of SaaS Unicorns Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software

New This Week

5 Interesting Learnings from Monday.com at $240M

So Monday.com has filed to IPO with some pretty incredible numbers, especially considering just how competitive the space is. At $240m in ARR, they are growing a stunning 85% year-over-year!

Here are the five interesting learnings -->

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

12 of the Most Common Mistakes Scaling Your First Sales Team

Mistake #1: Hiring reps and VPs from the competition. 1 or 2 is fine, but in general, the problem with hiring from the competition is we assume they are better than they are. We over-index on the inside information.

A few key mistakes startups make -->

SaaStr Annual Launch Tickets Now on Sale for Limited Time Pricing

We're back! SaaStr Annual 2021 will take place on Sept 29-29 in the Bay Area. 3 Days. 100+ Incredible SaaS Speakers. All Outdoors. 1:1 Networking, Tactical Workshops and More. Grab your launch tickets now for $999 before prices go up May 1.

Grab your tickets before we sell out -->

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

The Best SaaS Founders Are (Somehow) Indefatigable

A lot of founders are growing faster than ever before. A key factor is that these founders are Indefatigable. They may be tired, they may struggle to hit their lofty goals for the month and the quarter.

They simply can not be stopped -->

Dear SaaStr: Why Do Venture Capitalists take Board Seats?

It took me a while to figure this out. When I started writing venture (vs. angel) checks, the last thing I wanted to do was take another 'bored' seat. As a CEO/founder, I saw board meetings as important accountability sessions, for me and especially the team.

Watch now -->

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