With Stocks Under Pressure Founders are Turning to Private Equity; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

Hey SaaStr Community,

Public Cloud and SaaS stocks continue to be under a lot of pressure, with many Cloud leaders trading for half of what they were trading at just a few months ago.

But there’s one pocket of excitement: Private Equity deals.  Some of the latest examples:

Insight funds the purchase of Datto for $6.6B, with just 19% growth at $600m ARR.

Thoma Bravo buys Anaplan for $10.7B, with modest 29% growth at $600m+ ARR.

Thomas Bravo is buying Sailpoint for $6.9B, at $540m run-rate, growing 31%.

So, what’s going on here?

The Private Equity Math of 1+1=3 in SaaS Acquisitions

So is Square a SaaS company?  It’s not even Square anymore as a company … it’s now Block.  The majority of its revenue is now from Bitcoin transactions, not “traditional” payments and software.

And yet … and yet … its engine is all software and really SaaS.  At least still for now. Its software and services business is the one with the real operating margins. And while growth has slowed a bit, its net revenues are still growing an impressive 29% at a $16 Billion run-rate.

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

One of the most frustrating things for founders is when VCs “ghost” them.  They forget. The email box gets overloaded. It’s not an excuse; it’s not right.  But the thing is, it happens.

Eventually, your startup may be so hot that you can ghost VCs back.  And let me tell you, the top founders do. Once you are running a Calendly, a Canva, a whatever, you can’t even keep up with all the in-bounds from investors. 

Until then, though, you’re in sales — selling stock — and the VCs are prospects.  And prospects in sales ghost you all the time.

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR, or even more, that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales.  Everyone gets they need a great VP of Sales.  But for the other roles?  More and more these days, founders think they can get away with no one in the role, or just a junior person in marketing, in product, in success, in biz dev, etc.

Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales.  Even if they’ve never sold anything before. But I’ve found many great SaaS founders take longer, too long, to decide to hire the other VPs.

With just a few more weeks until SaaStr Europa 2022 – we’re excited to launch the entire SaaStr Europa 2022 Agenda!!

For 2 days, more than 50+ sessions and 75 expert speakers will be sharing their best practices in Barcelona on scaling, revenue, recruiting, expansion and so much more. Check out the full detailed agenda here.

From Asana to Zoominfo: this year’s Europa lineup is bringing the best Cloud speakers from around the globe together for two days of incredible learning and insights.

There will be over 2,500+ SaaS and Cloud professionals joining us there in person. Will you?

Get your ticket now and get a front-row seat when the Cloud comes to Barcelona.

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

It can be painful to look at your list of accounts and know that your early customers are paying much, much less than your new ones. So what do you do?

From seed funding to going public, Spenser Skates, CEO and co-founder of Amplitude, will discuss his journey building Amplitude’s Digital Optimization System from the ground up and empowering organizations of all sizes — from startups to Fortune 100 companies — to build better products. Spenser will share lessons learned from scaling Amplitude and expanding its product suite, his experience becoming only the tenth company to go public via direct listing, and his belief that the organizations that will win in the digital-first era are those that are product-led.

• SaaStr is seeking a Strategic Customer Success Manager to be an integral part of our revenue team ensuring that our sponsors have a wonderful experience with SaaStr and continue to increase their investment every year.

• Zendesk is looking for a VP, Enterprise Data & Analytics to own the vision, strategy and execution for enterprise data at Zendesk.

545

Marketing to Developers: Why Happy is Our Hack with DigitalOcean CMO Carly Brantz and SaaStr GM & SVP, Marketing Amelia Ibarra

546

The Secrets to Going Big, Going Multi-Product and Going Public with Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates, Part 1

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The Secrets to Going Big, Going Multi-Product and Going Public with Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates, Part 2

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts or Spotify

Most startups have that crazy director that owns like 9.2% and just says whatever, changes their mind all the time, and provides endless product feedback without data

It’s pretty common

Enterprise software spending globally was $529B in 2020, per Gartner.

In 2023, it will be $750B.

That’s a tailwind almost all of us are drafting on.

When you get tired, and settle on a mediocre VP

You also settle on their 10-15 mediocre hires to come

SMB SaaS companies have to be at least twice as efficient in almost every sales & marketing motion as Enterprise ones

Why?

Enterprise ones can sort of coast on weak sales and marketing efficiency with their 120%-140% NRR

© SaaStr 2022

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