Jason M. Lemkin
Co-Founder and CEO of EchoSign from inception through tens of millions in cash-flow positive SaaS revenue and acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc.
Jason then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where EchoSign was named the most successful acquisition of 2011-12, posting 199% YoY growth.
4 Good Reasons Not to Start a SaaS Start-Up
There’s been one huge change in “entrepreneurship” IMHO over the past 10 years. >> No, it’s not that it’s cheaper than ever to do a start-up. That’s not even true. In the old days, when software came on a disk, or a CD-ROM, it was even cheaper. You didn’t even need a single server to [...]
Great CEOs are Really Coaches, So Let’s Learn from Phil Jackson
“I don’t care if it’s 82-and-0 this year, you’re f***ing gone.”[5] – Jerry Krause, Owner of Chicago Bulls to Phil Jackson, The Greatest Coach Ever, After Phil Jackson Won His 5th NBA Championship, and just Before He Went On to Win His 6th NBA Championship and Thereafter Retire. That’s quite a quote. In light of [...]
Don’t Forget to Pay People Right – Or at Least as Much as You Can
I awoke to the news the other day that the Lakers passed on hiring Phil Jackson back, and instead, opted for Mike D’Antoni instead, apparently to save about $6m a year, a percent or so of equity, and a bunch of other conditions. Too much, apparently, to get The Best of the Best. And probably, [...]
Why I Hope BlackBerry10 Will Actually Make It
I don’t know about you, but I’ve basically bought every ‘cool’ gadget ever made, from the Creative Nomad to an original ReplayTV to all 3 generations of the AppleTV to a Uniden WebPhone to the Nintendo VirtualBoy. Yes, a VirtualBoy. Yeah, a lot of gadgets. Only a handful have really made a difference. The iPads [...]
Knowing — and Sharing — Your Zero Cash Date
One of the most important operating metrics in your SaaS start-up, if you aren’t predictably cash-flow positive, is your Zero Cash Date (“ZCD”). You hear a lot about SaaS metrics, but this one doesn’t often come up. It should, and should be very near the top of the list of core metrics. Your Zero Cash [...]
Unfortunately, We (Probably) Have No Idea If Your SaaS Idea is Any Good
Here’s the thing in SaaS: I appreciate you asking me. But, honestly, generally speaking — I probably have no idea if your pre-launch SaaS idea is any good. So no need even to show me any deck, any static demo, any mock-ups of your product-to-be. Because I have no idea if it’s truly a great [...]
Why You and Your VCs Can’t Really Be Friends
There’s a pattern I’ve observed in a number of my friends who are SaaS CEOs. Some fear their board and VCs. The VCs say “Jump”, they say “How High?” That’s for a different post. That doesn’t work out well for anyone. {This tends to happen when you have an insecure CEO, and VCs who control [...]
If You Go Small, You’ll Never Have a Legacy
Small can be beautiful in start-ups. Take no venture capital, build an eight-figure business, put the profits all in your backpocket. You can end up having a villa in Italy full of Pagondis, like the Basecamp guys. Boom. But. The
What Really Happened at Apple Around the Maps Scandal
One of our readers sent us secretly recorded snippets of the full inside story of the Maps scandal at Apple. While we cannot disclose the identity of this tipster, we can confirm the story is 100% true and validated, at
On Not Forgetting to be 10x Better
I was struggling what to make of the news that now, AT&T too was jumping into the cloud storage-as-a-commodity business offering 5GB of free online storage. Just like DropBox. And Google Drive. And Box, if you use it that way. And iCloud. And SkyDrive. And. And. And. You could make fun of it, but it [...]
A Little Less About Pricing. A Little More About Deal Size. Please.
It’s not that this is rocket science. It isn’t. But if you haven’t lived it, understand that Deal Size is the single most important factor in your SaaS business model. Because it will completely define how you do sales and marketing, and to a just somewhat lesser extent, prioritize feature development and product/engineering.
We’re Still Waiting for a Cloud That Just Works
SaaS entrepreneurs shouldn’t need a TechOps team until they hit $20m in revenue. I’m willing to write a piece of the Series A check to whoever can really fully solve this problem so that TechOps becomes a side issue.
The Shifting Sands of SaaS Relationships. Here’s How to Handle It.
I know why Steve Jobs was so very, very mad at Google and Eric Schmidt. Why he pledged to go “thermonuclear”. Why he vowed to spend up to $100 billion dollars (Apple’s cash) to “bury Google”. It couldn’t have been about Android per se. Google bought Android (the company) in 2005, a “software system for [...]
Beware of the Confidence of High Win Rates
The other day I was meeting with the founder of a really cool SaaS start-up. Great logo customers, great early traction, plenty of capital, fun space. This founder pretty much had me until he told me the classic line, “And we win almost every deal.” >> If there’s any sign you aren’t pushing hard [...]
And So Begins the End of this SaaS M&A Cycle
… and hence the acquisition dies due to excessive capital requirements. It’s almost impossible to blend a profitable entity with a new acquisition that is burning tens of more millions per year, unless it’s a total make-the-company bet like Android.
