Saas by @ttunguz

Saas

2025

The Mirage in the Software Clouds	March 14
The Complete Guide to SaaS Pricing Strategy	February 27

2024

A Challenge to SaaS Orthodoxy

October 10

2023

Signs We've Touched the Bottom	July 26
How Markets Value Software Companies in 2023	July 5
Picking Teams in AI	June 26
Marketing Teams as Hedge Funds	June 21
Does an AI Premium Exist in the Fundraising Market?	June 15
What if Every SaaS App Spoke English?	June 11
Web3 in SaaS Clothing	June 8
Microsoft's Billion Dollar AI Business	April 26
When Will SaaS Budgets Increase Again?	March 17
A Flare Across the Clouds : Cloudflare's Earnings Report	February 14
Sizing the Web3 B2B Software Market	January 1

2022

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Sand Hill Road	December 14
What the $6B Coupa Acquisition Means for Software Startups	December 12
Cutting R&D to Grow GTM Spend : Is it Happening Across Software Companies?	November 2
Sales Efficiency through Covid : Reading the Tea Leaves for Startups	October 30
Would You Leave the Cloud to Improve Sales Efficiency by 11%?	October 23
The Math Behind Starting a Successful Software Startup	August 2
Deliberately Underselling as Sales Strategy	July 11
The New Key Competitive Advantage for Web3 Startups	June 13
Guess the Startup Answers	March 14
The New Discipline Web3 Software Companies Must Develop	February 9

2021

What is the Product the Customer Buys Before They Buy Yours?	September 14
Can You Guess This Business's Name?	July 27
The Great Game of Risk Played in Category Creation, and Why the Winning Strategy is Aggression	June 16
The Identity Crisis Facing Open Source Companies in the Cloud	April 2
How Much is 20% More NDR Worth to Your SaaS Startup?	March 5
The Feedback Loops in Data that Will Change SaaS Architecture	March 2
The Missing Insight Around Software Multiples for Valuing Companies	January 11

2020

How Many Technologies Can a Company Adopt at Once?	October 29
How to Predict the Forward Multiple of a Software Company	September 22
How to Maximize the Impact of Your Website When Targeting Two Personas	September 14
Can You Still Make Money Starting a SaaS Company?	September 13
A Quick Diagnostic to Determine if Your Sales & Marketing Teams are Aligned	August 31
Asana S-1 Analysis - Comparing One Productivity Powerhouse to Another	August 27
How to Recruit a Marketing Team with Great Product Marketing and Demand Generation Abilities	July 26
The Unforeseen Benefits of Online Events	July 19
Top 10 Learnings from the Redpoint 2020 GTM Survey	June 25
What is the Structure of the Typical SaaS Company as it Scales?	June 21
How Predictive is SDR/BDR Quota Attainment of AE Quota Attainment?	June 17
Notes from Office Hours with Hollie Wegman	June 12
Why Margin Matters Now in Startupland	April 12
Notes from Office Hours with Lisa Lawson	March 9
The Strategic Importance of Competition	February 23
One of the Most Frequent Errors in Sales Planning and Forecasting	February 17
Simpson's Paradox in Measuring Net Dollar Retention Rate	February 3
Cloud Prem Architecture - The New Way of Serving the Enterprise with a Hub and Spoke Data Model	January 29
B2B vs B2C: How Should Your Sales Team Be Allocated to Maximize Success?	January 5

2019

How Much Turnover in Your Sales Team Should Your Startup Expect?	December 12
The Most Frequent Mishire in Startups	November 10
100k+ ACV SaaS Companies: Do Their Metrics Differ from Other SaaS Companies?	June 24
Why Product Innovation Slows After the Series A	June 10
As Your Sales Team Scales, Focus on Your Middle	May 30
How to Develop Best in Class Sales Efficiency	May 10
What a Valuation Implies About a Business	May 6
The Four Strategic Questions Facing AI Agencies	April 14
Hustle As Strategy	April 8
Five Reasons to Sell End-to-End Products in Early Markets	March 26
The AI Agency - A Novel GTM for Machine Learning SaaS Startups	January 17

2018

Just Where Are SaaS Companies Priced After the 2018 Correction?	December 26
Which is More Important: New Account Growth or Account Expansion?	December 11
Selling Your Product While You Build It	December 3
A New Way to Calculate a SaaS Company's Efficiency	December 1
The Four Stages of Sales Compensation Structures in Early Stage Startups	November 25
SAP Buys Qualtrics; 2018 Catapulted to $65B in $1B+ M&A Volume	November 11
In Early Markets, Services Can Be a Competitive Advantage	October 1
Three Observations About the Adobe/Marketo Acquisition	September 24
How the Economics of Professional Services Have Changed in Software	September 16
1% of Salesforce's Revenue Makes a Unicorn	August 26
Timing Cashflows of Your Sales Commissions and Your Customers	July 15
Lessons Learned from 20 Years at the Leading Edge of SaaS	July 10
Does Winner Take Most in SaaS?	July 8
An Often Forgotten Characteristic About Your Startup's Ideal Customer Profile The Ideal Customer Profile. The perfect customer. Can you describe it for your startup? The more precisely you can describe it, the better. That will simplify disqualification. But articulating the ICP well isn't enough.	March 25
The Salesforce/Mulesoft Acquisition is a Bellwether for the 2018 M&A Market	March 20
The Clearest Articulation of a Marketing Roadmap	March 2
Private Equity as an Exit Option for SaaS Startups	February 27
Reorganizing Your SaaS Startup’s Organizational Structure to Optimize the Customer Lifecycle	January 31
How to Identify a SaaS Market that Machine Learning Will Disrupt	January 26
Jettisoning the Assumptions of Last Year	January 1

2017

The Implication of Secular Increases in SaaS CAC	November 1
The Rising Stakes in SaaS	October 22
How Much Should A SaaS Startup Invest in Sales & Marketing?	September 17
The Challenges of the Platform Go To Market	September 6
The Theory and Data Underpinning Sales Commission Plans	September 4
Maximizing Productivity on My Commute	August 27
Has SaaS Become Commodified?	August 23
The Volatility of Multiples in the Public SaaS Market	August 21
Why Cash Conversion Cycle Matters for Your Startup	August 15
How to Decide When To Move Upmarket	August 8
A Tale of Two Go To Market Strategies	April 24
Is There a No Man's Land in SaaS ACVs?	April 21
The Four Dimensions of a Demand Generation Portfolio	April 17
SMB or Enterprise - Which is the Better Go To Market in SaaS?	April 13
Customer Operations - An Idea for Maximizing Efficient Growth in SaaS Companies	March 29
Creating Tension in Your Startup's Marketing Positioning	March 27
A Product Manager's Guide to Moving Up Market	March 7
One of the Hardest Things to Do in Sales	February 10
The $100M ARR Customer	January 17

2016

When to Increase Your SaaS Startup's Burn	December 16
The Important SaaS Accounting Changes Coming in 2017	November 30
Are We Seeing the Beginning of SaaS Consolidation?	October 31
Why Demand Generation Can Be So Challenging For Startups	October 26
What is the Optimal Contract Length for Your SaaS Startup?	October 20
How Big is a Typical Software Company Acquisition?	October 17
The Characteristics of the Most Attractive SMB SaaS Companies	October 10
Are SMB SaaS Companies Valued Differently than Mid-Market SaaS Businesses?	September 21
What's the Maximum Rate of Growth for Your SaaS Startup with Paid Customer Acquisition?	September 19
How Should I Think About My SaaS Startup's Burn Rate	September 9
Designing a Sales Quota Structure at the Earliest Stages of a SaaS Startup	September 2
How Much is Your SaaS Startup Worth?	August 31
3 Marketing Insights from a World Class SaaS Marketer	August 29
How Fast Does a SaaS Startup Have to Grow to Survive?	July 27
Which of the Three Software Budgets Does Your SaaS Startup Target?	July 24
The Decline of New SaaS Company Formation	June 21
What Average Contract Value is Best for a SaaS Company	May 24
Just How Far Along Are We In SaaS?	April 21
In Every Great Product There's a Bit of Magic	March 15
The Strategic Shift in Revenue for SaaS Startups as They Scale	March 9
Benchmarking Exceptional Series A SaaS Companies	February 25

2015

Pricing for SaaS Enabled Marketplaces - When to Go Free	December 7
How Much Cash Should Your SaaS Startup Burn?	November 12
What is the Optimal Quick Ratio for Your SaaS Startup?	November 3
What Quota Attainment Reveals About Your SaaS Startup's Go to Market	October 28
Five Words of Wisdom from SaaS Office Hours with Bill Macaitis	October 22
5 Mistakes SaaS Startups Often Make with Pricing	October 15
The Essential Go To Market Math for Beating Your SaaS Startup's Growth Targets	October 5
Data Network Effects in SaaS Enabled Marketplaces	September 24
The Importance of Payback Period for SaaS Startups	September 21
Do Vertical SaaS Companies Benefit from Higher Sales Efficiency?	September 17
Vertical SaaS Startups Require Different Go To Market than Horizontal SaaS Companies	September 14
Why Bottoms Up Selling is a Fundamental Shift in SaaS	August 28
Four Important Data Points about Purchasing Behavior in SaaS	August 26
The Impact of the Stock Market on SaaS Valuations in 2015	August 24
The Number One Objection in the Sales Funnel	August 18
When Do SaaS Startups Hire Their First VP of Sales	August 5
Take Your Startup to the Limit	July 20
The Increasing Fragmentation of SaaS	July 7
The Beauty of Bottoms Up SaaS Businesses	June 23
Which Open Source License Should Your Project Use if You Want to Raise Venture Capital?	June 19
The Disruptive Effect of Open Source Startups	June 16
Startup Best Practices 13 - Patience with Unit Economics	June 14
How an $11B SaaS Company Measures Churn	June 10
The Expanding Role of Marketing in SaaS Companies	June 8
Why We're Only Just at the Beginning of SaaS	June 5
Unpacking the Deep Diagnostic Value of LTV/CAC for SaaS Startups	June 3
When Should Your SaaS Startup Offer Professional Services	May 31
The Health of the SaaS IPO Market	May 28
The Risk Sales Discounts Impose to Startup Burn Rates	May 26
Free SaaS Enabled Marketplaces - A Novel Go-To-Market for Software Startups	May 21
The First Generation of the Talent Software Wars	May 19
From $800k to $274M in 4 Years - The Story of Ariba	May 14
How Great Unit Economics Enables Startups to Weather the Storm - The Story of WebEx	May 7
Which is a More Efficient Way to Build a SaaS Startup - Bottoms Up or Top Down?	May 3
A SaaS History Lesson – The First SaaS Company's Exceptional Journey	April 28
The Innovator's Solution for SaaS Startups - The Flywheel SaaS Company	April 19
The Innovator's Dilemma for SaaS Startups	April 9
Are SaaS Startups Today Worth More than Ten Years Ago?	April 5
The 5 Key People in a SaaS Sales Process	March 26
The Best Book on Building a SaaS Sales Team	March 24
The SaaS Company that Grew from 0 to 4M Subscribers in 2.5 Years	March 22
The Forces in Tension in the SaaS Fundraising Market	March 18
The 5 Marketing Channels of Great SaaS Companies	March 18
Why Your Startup's Churn Rate Affects Your Company's Ability to Plan Its Future	March 16
The State of the SaaS Fundraising Market	March 13
Sales Funnel Optimization for SaaS Startups	March 10
Modeling Your SaaS Startup's Revenue Growth Effectively	February 25
Challenging Your Customers During Your SaaS Startup's Sales Process	February 13
A Single Report to Measure the Health of Your Startup's Sales Team	February 9
The Employee Productivity Patterns of Billion Dollar SaaS Companies	February 5
Benchmarks for Employee Stock Based Compensation in SaaS Startups	February 2
The Compression in SaaS Valuations	January 23
The Fundraising Patterns of Unicorn SaaS Companies	January 22
The Increasing Growth Rates of SaaS Companies	January 19
Are SaaS Startups Less Profitable than they Used to Be?	January 16
The Rising Table Stakes in SaaS	January 14
The Sales Motions of B2C2B Companies	January 12
B2C2B Startups - Why Selling with Internal Influencers is so Powerful	January 7
3 Questions about Founders as CEOs in SaaS Companies	January 6
The Sudden Shift in SaaS Product Pricing	January 5

2014

The Concur Acquisition in Context: A SaaS MegaExit	December 14
Benchmarking Box's Updated S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up	December 11
The 2014 Class of SaaS IPOs	December 4
How Much Should Your Startup Spend on Customer Account Expansion?	November 24
How Important are Professional Services to Your Startup?	November 20
Why Negative Churn is Such a Powerful Growth Mechanism	November 18
Benchmarking New Relic's S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up	November 17
A Unique Chronicle Of A Billion Dollar Company	November 14
Why Your SaaS Startup Needs a VP of Customer Success Sooner Than You Might Think	November 12
The 7 Factors to Consider When Pricing Your Startup's Product	November 5
Using Statements of Work to Accelerate Sales Cycle and Align Sales, Customer Success and Marketing	October 24
The Obscure Economic Idea Behind SaaS Pricing Challenges	October 23
The 9 Marketing Disciplines of Great SaaS Companies	October 22
Why Revenue Isn't the Most Important Financial Metric for Startups	October 20
What You’re Making Is In A Perpetual State Of Almost Right Up Until The End	September 18
The Optimal Price to Maximize Sales Efficiency for a SaaS Startup	September 9
Benchmarking Zendesk's S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up	September 3
The Best Way to Benchmark a SaaS Startup	August 28
Benchmarking Hubspot's S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up	August 27
Benchmarking Consumer and SaaS Companies' Path to IPO	August 19
Why Customer Success? Why Now?	August 12
The Challenge Facing Mobile-First SaaS Companies	August 5
Building a Performant Customer Success Organization	July 31
The Next Era in SaaS	July 14
The Marketing Math Behind Scaling a SaaS Salesforce	June 30
How Much Should Your Startup Spend to Grow?	June 13
Salesforce's Marketing Secret - The Fourth Marketing P	June 2
The Common Characteristics of Successful Freemium Companies	May 30
The Impact of Varying Sales Hiring Strategies on SaaS Startups	May 28
Confessions of a Perpetual Freeloader: When to Jettison the Freemium Tier	May 22
A Surprisingly Powerful Mechanism for Growing a SaaS Startup	May 21
The 4 Challenges Facing Customer Success Teams in SaaS Startups	May 15
What's Happening to the SaaS Market?	May 1
Quantifying a SaaS Startup's Revenue at Risk	April 23
The Challenges SaaS Businesses Face Communicating their Financial Health	April 17
The Investment Patterns of SaaS Companies in Sales and Engineering Over Time	April 15
The Correction in SaaS Company Valuations	April 9
Do Startups Require Less Capital to Succeed than 10 Years Ago?	April 4
Benchmarking Box's S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up	March 24
How Fast Must a SaaS Startup Grow to Raise a Series A?	March 17
SaaS Startup Balance Sheets: How Much Cash & How Much Debt to Raise	March 14
How Quickly Does a SaaS Startup Have to Grow to Go Public?	March 13
Why There's Never Been a Better Time to Found a SaaS Startup	March 11
Great SaaS Companies Focus on Behavior Change	March 5
What to Look for When Hiring a Head of Marketing for Your Startup	February 20
The Optimal Average Customer Value for SaaS Startups	February 3
The Maximum Viable Churn Rate for a Startup	January 29
The Go-To-Market Challenges of B2D Companies	January 27
Why Everything I Thought I Knew About Churn Is Wrong	January 15
Why Quotas Aren't the Most Important Number for Startup Sales Teams	January 13
The Importance of Seasonality in SaaS Startups	January 9
The Three Doors to SaaS Success	January 7

2013

How to Hire a Head of Customer Success for Your Startup	December 5
Startup Best Practices 3 - How to Structure a Sales and Marketing Team	December 3
The Ratio of Engineers to Sales People in Billion Dollar SaaS Startups	November 11
The Three Churn Mitigation Strategies of SaaS Startups	October 31
The SaaS Valuation Bubble	October 22
How Much Should Your Startup Spend on Managing Churn?	October 16
Why Customer Success Is An Essential Part of Every SaaS Startup	October 11
Sales Efficiency Benchmarks for SaaS Startups	October 10
The 3 Competitive Defenses of Enduring SaaS Companies	October 1
What Your Startup’s MRR Figure Is Hiding	September 27
Six Key Benchmarks for Your SaaS Startup	September 11
The Sales and Marketing Spend Strategies of Billion Dollar SaaS Companies	August 26
The Five Characteristics of An Ideal SaaS Company	July 15
Antagonism is the Heart of the Consumerization of IT Movement	May 23
Three Counterintuitive Points about SMB SaaS	May 6
The Defining Characteristics of Successful SMB SaaS Startups	April 17
Why Freemium Negates The Leaky Bucket Myth	March 25
Freemium Businesses Switch the Hunter and Farmer Sales Roles	February 7
The product qualified lead (PQL)	January 15

2012

The Secret to SMB SaaS Distribution	September 18
The Freemium Game Plan	August 21
Segmenting the SaaS Market for Sales	August 20
Successful SMB SaaS Companies Have a 2 Step Value Proposition	April 26

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