What Happens When Startups Turn from Their Innovation Stage to Operational Excellence?
Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observer in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the […]
10 Amazing Sessions on Bootstrapped Startups at SaaStr Annual 2018
One request from last year’s SaaStr Annual was to add even more content for bootstrapped (vs venture funded) startups. We have! We’d like to think 100% of SaaStr content and speakers applies to bootstrapped startups just as well as any other type — but there are differences. So a few sessions to highlight: Ryan Smith, […]
Should I Sell for $50m … Or Push On And Try to Build a Unicorn?
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 […]
Why the Former President of Nickelodeon Joined mitú as CEO.
I am beyond excited to announce the Herb Scannell has agreed to move from NYC to Los Angeles to take on the role of CEO at mitú, the fast growing Latino digital media company, serving more than 100 million monthly unique viewers. Herb is a Puerto-Rican American media executive who was previously the President of […]
Want to Really Understand What all the Hype of Cryptocurrency is About?
If you read the headlines you may well think cryptocurrencies are a either a radically new way of paying that is our savior from ossified, corrupt governments or on the other side that they are speculative Ponzi schemes. The reality of course is that cryptocurrencies can be both and can be liberating and corrupting at […]
When to Stop Doing It All Yourself
Perhaps the biggest difference between most first-time founders and most second-time founders is how long they try to do it all themselves. This isn’t a criticism first time you usually sort of have to. You have less capital to hire a team, and less experience building teams. But then after that there are at least […]
SaaStr Tower unveiled!! The Annual has officially been upgraded!
We’ve already announced our first 70 speakers, and now we’re excited to share the biggest SaaStr Annual announcement of the year… we’ve upgraded the event venue for 2018! With ticket sales tracking at over 1.6x our 2017 numbers, our attendees are going to need a bigger and better experience than anything we’ve ever offered. SaaStr […]
IT heroes: Use customer service to build business relationships
Image from iStockphoto The importance of building bridges between IT and business stakeholders is obvious, but getting there is hard. In his book, Driving Digital, veteran CIO Isaac Sacolick describes the need to build these relationships from the bottom up: The solutions and transformational practices that I helped implement across these organizations had more similarities […]
What Do Boards Actually Do?
There’s a lot of mystique about what happens at board meetings and a lot of imagined board-room drama. I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. The image of boards and of investors […]
Details of Upfront Ventures New $400 Million Fund
I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Upfront VI is our latest core fund and is $400 million to invest in early stage entrepreneurs. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion. […]
What is the Right Burn Rate for your Startup?
One of the hardest decisions entrepreneurs make when they start a company and raise outside capital is figuring out what an acceptable “burn rate” is. That is, how much should your company be willing to lose in cash every month as you make investments in staff and equipment that funds technology, sales, marketing and management. […]
Should Startups Care About Profitability?
There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. One of them is whether profitability matters. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re […]
The Two Things to Do. When You Don’t Know What to Do.
There may come a time, or two, in your company when you just don’t know what to do. You aren’t growing fast enough. or The competition seems to be getting the best of you. or You can’t raise financing. or You just lost an important deal. Or maybe more than one. or That great new […]
One Tough (But Rewarding) Job: Being the First Sales Rep at a SaaS Startup
Ah, the first sales rep. Being the first salesperson into a start-up in a rewarding — but very tough job: Your Founder Boss likely will never have managed a salesperson before. She likely won’t know what you are supposed to do 40+ hours a week. Your Founder Boss may have strong views on what you […]
Jyoti Bansal and The AppDynamics Story: From Idea to $3.7B (Video + Transcript)
Jyoti Bansal, Founder & Chairman of AppDynamics joined Jason Lemkin on stage at SaaStr Annual 2017 to give us the inside scoop on his 11th-hour decision to sell to Cisco rather than going public — and the path he took to get IPO-ready. Jason opened the ‘17 Annual with an acknowledgment of the global nature […]
