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2 – Topic

Squeezing Out That Last 10%-20% Growth

Squeezing Out That Last 10%-20% Growth

By Jason M. Lemkin on May 21, 2018

Once you have something in SaaS, somewhere on the path from $1m to $10m where you’re either on your way to Initial Scale or getting past it, you’ll often end up with a subtle choice: Should you go for the extra 10%-20% of growth a year? After a few years, a few management team mistakes, […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Getting to Initial Scale, growth, Traction & Scale

When to Add a European (or Other International) Office

When to Add a European (or Other International) Office

By Jason M. Lemkin on March 5, 2018

SaaS has been global from the earliest days, although how and when you go global can vary.  Salesforce went very early into Japan (it takes a lot longer to add a lot of Japanese customers for most of us), which quickly accounted for almost 10% of their revenue in the early days.  I had 15% […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Customer success, growth

15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make

15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 22, 2018

Recently I assembled my “Top 15” list of Sales & Marketing mistakes SaaS startups make as things start to take-off.  We’ve touched on quite a few of these before on SaaStr (will link to them), but I thought this might be a helpful checklist to challenge your thinking at a minimum. We’ve all made many […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Early, Getting Going, SaaS Startups

How to Know if a Key Hire is an A or a B (or even a C)

How to Know if a Key Hire is an A or a B (or even a C)

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 1, 2018

The biggest mistake you are probably going to make is hiring B or even C players for key director and VP positions when you get your startup going.  This will set you back many, many months.  Time and money lost investing in a key individual who simply doesn’t deliver in a critical position. As a […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Early, Getting Going, Hiring & Operations, SaaS Startups

2018-2025:  The Golden Age of SaaS Freemium

2018-2025: The Golden Age of SaaS Freemium

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 15, 2018

Way back in 2012, in the early days of SaaStr, we wrote a piece challenging everyone out there who dreamed of going freemium in SaaS.  That’d you’d need at least 50 million users to build a Unicorn, or at least, to build something big.  To challenge you to make sure you can really get at […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, growth, SaaS Startups

The One Best, “Secret” Hack to Getting Venture Funding

The One Best, “Secret” Hack to Getting Venture Funding

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 11, 2018

I am fairly confident there are at least 10,000 Medium posts, 20,000 WordPress articles, and over well over 1,000,000 Tweets on How to Get Funded. It bores me personally, but I know it’s an important topic.  Raising money for many CEOs is one of the their top 5 priorities.  Without venture capital, I’d be nowhere.  […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Early, Venture Capital

Small Checks From Large Venture Funds:  Maybe One is Enough

Small Checks From Large Venture Funds: Maybe One is Enough

By Jason M. Lemkin on November 15, 2017

Apologies in advance to my friends and colleagues that will disagree and/or dislike this post.  But anyhow … The world of venture fundraising has changed again dramatically the past 24 months.  250+ new seed funds have been raised (wow!) in the past 24 months.  That really is crazy.  And Big Funds have added even more […]

Posted in Featured Posts, Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Early, Fundraising & Exits, Venture Capital | 1 Response

Field Sales:  When Domain Expertise Does Matter.  Just Don’t Over-index.

Field Sales: When Domain Expertise Does Matter. Just Don’t Over-index.

By Jason M. Lemkin on November 7, 2017

Imagine you are selling a $100,000+ product and you yourself as CEO/founders have limited knowledge selling to the customer base. You’ll be very tempted to hire someone with a seemingly magical rolodex. What doesn’t work for sure is hiring someone with (x) no domain expertise who also (y) has also only sold small (e.g, $10k) […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, growth, sales, Sales & Customer Success, scale

7 “Easy” Ways to Increase Sales

7 “Easy” Ways to Increase Sales

By Jason M. Lemkin on November 3, 2017

7 top tips: Hire a great VP of Sales. Yes, I am a broken record here. But I’ve seen it 100+ times. Hire a great VP of Sales, and even if nothing else changes … she’ll increase the revenue per lead by 20–100%+. In one sales cycle or less. More here: How My VP, Sales […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 1 - Stage, 2 - Topic, Early, Getting Going, SaaS Startups

Should I Sell for $50m … Or Push On And Try to Build a Unicorn?

Should I Sell for $50m … Or Push On And Try to Build a Unicorn?

By Jason M. Lemkin on November 1, 2017

BusinessInsider had a great story this week on Datto’s $1b exit to Vista Private Equity (more on the new role of PE in SaaS here).  So much of it resonated with me, especially the story of the CEO’s 10 year journey, and turning down a $100m offer to sell.  A decent offer to buy your […]

Posted in Startup Lessons | Tagged 2 - Topic, IPOs & Exits, M&A

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