How To Know You’ve Hit First Traction In SaaS. The Moment When You’ve Got A Real Company.
There’s a common meme in Venture Capital that traction is tough to quantify, but you know it when you see it. Well, let’s take a stab at it anyway. Quantifying it. Because I don’t think Initial Traction is at all nebulous in SaaS — and I think it occurs earlier than many think. Here’s a [...]
SaaStr on TechCrunch! The M&A “Nibble” And What To Do When You Get One
Hopefully, you saw us last weekend on TechCrunch. We’re trying to do our small part and hopefully save you a few headaches and mistakes as you scale your SaaS start-up from $0 to Initial Traction to $10m in ARR, $20m in ARR, and beyond. We’re glad — on a good day — to get as [...]
A Post Startup Execs Should Forward to Your Spouse or Partner. 12 Tips for Making it Work
I recently wrote a post about how to manage relationships when you’re at a startup or are busy executive. It was based on an excellent book I had just read by Brad Feld & Amy Batchelor (his wife). I had images in my brain of all of the stresses I had placed on my wife [...]
7 Steps to Getting to Cash-Flow Positive Faster (in SaaS)
There are pros and cons, in these days of Fat Start-ups, to being cash-flow positive. In an ideal world, you’d experience both hyper-growth, and free cash flow from almost Day 1. The reality is though, in SaaS, especially if you are sales-driven, that’s often gonna be tough. You’ll need some capital to get either off [...]
A Simple Commitment Test For You And Your Co-Founders
As we’ve talked about before, the great thing about SaaS, is it compounds. Once you have something, it builds on itself. But it takes time. It takes 7-10 to build something real. If you are reading this, you’re probably up for that 7+ year commitment, assuming you’re fortune enough to get there. >> But what [...]
One Book Every Entrepreneur Should Own
Brad Feld seems to write books faster than I can read and write about them. This time he has written a book that is far more important than most management books you will read. He teamed up with his wife, Amy Batchelor, to write about about the impact that entrepreneurship has on relationships and what [...]
The All-In Dilution from an Outside CEO: Just Make Sure You Do the Math
First, before we get into the math and the pie chart below, let me be clear: I am in NO way against bringing in an outside CEO to run your SaaS company. #1: If you lack CEO skills on your team, you should do this on Day 1. #2: And even if you have enough [...]
5 Simple Ideas to Immediately Improve Your Conversion Rates in SaaS
Recently, I was asked a great question about Improving Conversion Rates. If you haven’t done this in the past, I’ve got my 4 best suggestions that will work to get your conversion rates up. If you’re past this point — my apologies. However, before we get there, let me state the obvious, that there are [...]
If You Want to Get Funded – Dude, Make It Easy On Them
Lately, I’ve noticed that some of the absolutely smartest, sharpest folks I know trying to raise early/early-ish stage capital are struggling … and they are sort of amazed how other folks they know who, well, aren’t quite as sharp are mopping up that venture capital. What’s the issue? Seems like it’s always the same. You [...]
Sandy Hook Promise and Tech Activism
The tech community has become more politically active over the past 5 years and this is a good thing. We live in a representative democracy and organizing, having a voice and expressing views is critical to our functioning democracy. One of the most visible, active and admirable leaders of this movement is Ron Conway and [...]
The Law of Attach Rates, And Why Partners Can’t Really Move the Needle For You (Directly)
I want to spend a little time on some learnings about Strategic Partners in SaaS. First, let me be clear — to make it in SaaS, you’re probably going to need to achieve real success with Strategic Partners. Because it takes a Village. And because your partners will likely, through integrations in particular, make your [...]
I’m Back. Why I Love January
It’s January. Happy New Year! My last post was December 17 – nearly a month ago. I miss blogging because it serves as a great repository for me of my current thinking, as a way of organizing my thoughts and clarifying what I think and as a conversation started with so many of you (as Hunter [...]
When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two
The time is probably going to come when you have to build a sales team in SaaS. It may be Day 1 if you have plenty of capital and are selling to large enterprises. It may be X months down the road, once you close a few deals of large enough size ($x,000 ACV) to [...]
Two SaaS Metrics That Actually Don’t Matter That Much: Churn and Sales Cycles
Ok, I know the title sounds a bit controversial, but bear with me, it’s not. Metrics are critical in SaaS, and you need to track them fastidiously. But it’s also important to focus on the right metrics, at the right stage, and not obsess about the less important ones at the wrong times. And I’m [...]
If You Have 10 {Unaffiliated} Customers in SaaS — You Have Something.
One of the tough things in SaaS, a downside of the fact that it compounds, is that you’re always running on the Habitral. That makes it really hard to see your moments of success, and perhaps even more importantly — really hard to see and internalize and process pre-success. So I’d like to highlight a few [...]
