SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2022

The Best in SaaS are still growing at incredible rates, but the overhang from the crazy multiples and VC funding run of late 2020-early 2022 will hang over our heads for the rest of the year. A great VP of Sales. Make Absolutely Sure Your Burn Rate is Under Control. Almost hitting the burn rate plan.

E-commerce 95

E-commerce Healthcare Launch Promote 95

Anthony Cole Training

OCTOBER 7, 2015

In a time of economic pressure to manage the profits companies have become very creative in finding solutions to manage the burn rate of their cash. The solution that many, if not most, struggle with is how to get the cash generation rate to meet and exceed the burn rate.

Sales 171

Sales Meeting Process Drivers/motivators 171

Hubspot

APRIL 11, 2023

Your sales team plays an essential role in driving revenue and reaching goals that stretch across the organization. So should you be worried about churn in your sales department? Sales teams have higher-than-average turnover rates than other business units. Why do sales teams experience high turnover?

Non-Profits 82

Non-Profits Drivers/motivators Quota Represent 82

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Because of the interest rate increase by the Fed. When the overall interest rate is higher, you need to discount those future cash flows to the present to understand the value of the company today. A higher interest rate means a higher discount rate. First, divide your cash burned by net ARR added.

Profit margin 86

Profit margin Drivers/motivators Cross-sell Growth 86

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2022

Growth at any cost is no longer rewarded and startups need to pay close attention to their burn rate and runway. Have you ever been just crushing it, maybe to the point that your VCs are telling you your burn rate is too low, only to wake up one day and realize everything has turned around?

Growth 95

Growth Closing Product Sales 95

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Don’t hide the burn rate. You know when the burn is too high. You know when that fancy VP of Sales you hired isn’t going to work out. Investors are prepared for bad news. Share it as soon as you have it. Actually, share it as soon as you sense it. Finally, the worst bad news to hide is that you are running out of money.

Legal 91

Legal Trust Follow-up Meeting 91

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Sacks believes there will be a co-pilot for every professional job category and also horizontal job functions like marketing and sales. Seed Is No Longer A Bargain Two years ago, every seed round looked good because the graduation rate of Series A was so high. But the mortality rate on seed rounds is high right now — like 80%.

Finance 89

Finance Up-sell Contract B2B 89

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2024

They wanted to do three things: Enter a space they had no product or customers in today; and Add on at least $10m of extra revenue for the year; and Not add too much to their burn rate. I’d actually invested in the #1 in the space, which today is at $200m+ ARR. You can’t bet on this.

Growth 98

Growth Price Strategize Closing 98

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2022

So many of you will want to manage the burn more carefully. Let go of your bottom 20% of sales reps, concentrate leads in the best reps. Have a firm, management-team wide burn rate budget. Pick a fixed amount of cash you can burn each month, period. You can’t plan your burn if you can’t model it. More here.

Contract 114

Contract Negotiate Growth Price 114

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2021

On why the best sales teams just close so much on the last day of the year (be it Dec 31 for many of you, Jan 31 for others). Great for sales reps looking to hit their quota. If there was budget to burn, it would have already been burnt earlier in the month of December. Sales/marketing team last to leave the office.

Intrinsic 123

Intrinsic Pitch Contract Quota 123

Veloxy

APRIL 5, 2022

With the ever growing size of sales technology stacks , the standard telephone can get lost in the array of options—especially for outreach. Couple the aforementioned facts with the reluctance on the part of inside sales and outside sales reps to call leads, and the phone can collect dust faster than a broom. Gate keepers.

Cold Call 234

Cold Call Gate keeper Outside Sales Inside sales 234

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2021

Both have a sales-driven process, selling to SMBs. The other is burning a ton of cash. The reality is the answer is a CAC that fits your revenue plan and your burn rate budget. If your burn rate is low, let the CAC grow. If you aren’t burning much, don’t put so much pressure on CAC.

Drivers/motivators 112

Drivers/motivators Up-sell Pipeline Gaming 112

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2022

Investments I've made that didn't work out: – Momentum investment – CEO a bit of bulls**t artist – CEO good at sales but weak product team / CTO. Investments I've made that had so-so outcomes: – CEO not better than me – CEO couldn't control burn rate – Not really SaaS.

Start-ups 108

Start-ups Growth Product Sales 108

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Next year they are all going from a few million to >$300m in ARR, but the burn rates are all, all, all over the place. Some are barely burning any cash. Some are still burning far more than their new bookings, which is very, very risky these days. In fact, great sales teams are accretive. Why was Netsuite?

Quota 112

Quota Contract Price Growth 112

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2022

One, your growth rate went down, and number two, you kept spending cash according to your original plan.”. If your growth slows but you don’t adjust your original spending plan, this leads to a higher burn rate, a loss in ARR, a shorter runway, and less investor interest. Burn Multiple = Net Burn / Net New ARR.

Growth 83

Growth Up-sell Closing Sell 83

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

Although churn and down-sell rates are relatively consistent during growth, this ability to capture new logos consistently can help to avoid client concentration in a volatile market. On the other hand, the sales expenses form a larger share of operating expenses as the GTM motion is leveraged. This trends downward over time.

Growth 85

Growth GTM Launch Go To Market 85

SaaStr

AUGUST 28, 2023

Many SaaS leaders in sales and marketing spaces saw growth go from 100% to 10%, from 50% to 0%. VCs stopped pushing, pushing, pushing for ever higher growth, and basically left startups alone that weren’t burning much. Net net, every VC-backed startup with mediocre growth but a low burn and a long runway got a pass in 2023.

E-commerce 88

E-commerce Hospitality Growth Gaming 88

Highspot

JUNE 15, 2021

ValueSelling Associates and Selling Power surveyed more than 150 B2B senior sales leaders to find out exactly what differentiates the best in the sales profession. The insights from this survey can help all of us salespeople hone our sales skills and learn tips from the winners. average rating. Desire to Win.

Objectives and Key Results 116

Objectives and Key Results Pipeline Sales Drivers/motivators 116

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2023

Q: Dear SaaStr: Is it Ethical For a Startup CEO to Accept a Sales Commission for Deals They Close Themselves? But not a deal-by-deal commission like a sales rep. It basically brought in enough cash to fund us for the better part of a year, given our low burn rate. Even though their contracts weren’t up. And they did it.

Commission 89

Commission Closing Contract Meeting 89

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Back in the day, premium comp for some software sales execs made simple and easy sense. Traditional software had 90% gross margins, and the classic enterprise sales reps, the best ones, could close a million or more dollars a year. Sales reps in low NRR and high churn environments got paid almost the same as enterprise reps.

Commission 127

Commission Quota Sales Growth 127

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2023

Dear SaaSt: Do sales commission clawbacks typically apply after a customer’s payment has cleared (e.g. This is an issue that will worry you a lot in the early days — and that later, at least help make sure sales doesn’t pursue churn-and-burn deals too aggressively. Ah, clawbacks. But it won’t really matter.

Commission 92

Commission Customers Finance Contract 92

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Some of the info on growth rates at this stage isn’t relevant because there aren’t many companies that can look back 12 months and see any significant revenue by the time they raise a Seed round. Looking at the growth rates, more than half of those companies grew at more than 2x. But a significant number were growing at less than 2x.

Growth 77

Growth Start-ups Product Sales 77

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

VPs of Sales are reluctant to push reps missing quota, again and again. That yes, our churn rate is too high or our NRR too low. Many folks are saying everyone from our kids to our SVPs and CEOs can’t take criticism anymore. It does seem to be more true, in my experience. That yes, we have to sell even harder.

Contract 103

Contract Quota Up-sell Meeting 103

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

Burn rate risk. Many VCs, especially ones with smaller (i.e., < $400m or so) funds get nervous around high burn rate start-ups. And will tolerate a higher burn (within limits) to get there. Which is expensive, can take tons of sales reps, and isn’t done through the software / network effects per se.

Networking 135

Networking Growth Price Engineering 135

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Dear SaaStr: Why Do So Many Startups Burn Through So Much Cash? Your sales and marketing costs are very high. Sales and marketing costs can be high for two reasons. First, driving up your win rate especially when there is a lot of competition makes sales more expensive. Competition. after paying off expenses.

Price 99

Price Start-ups Closing Prospecting 99

ClickFunnels

OCTOBER 18, 2021

Want to make more sales? Otherwise, you’ll go broke, no matter how many sales you make. Once a potential customer provides an email address in order to get access to your lead magnet, they enter your sales funnel and become a lead. Also, it might take a while to get it right, so be prepared to burn some cash on trial and error.

Lead generation 219

Lead generation Cross-sell Start-ups Campaign 219

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

The main reason for the pullback was due to the external shock of hiking interest rates. Within a year, we moved out of a hyper-low interest rate environment at record-breaking speed, which led to multiple compression and macro uncertainty. Like public markets, Cloud100 growth rates have come down. Why are they doing this?

Growth 101

Growth Negotiate Finance Contract 101

Sales Hacker

APRIL 18, 2023

Table of contents Joel’s background: 80% interview rate, 0 sales experience Burn your resume! Here’s why Statistics: Video pitches vs. resumes How to make a video pitch Video pitch + follow-up cadence Real success stories Hone your mindset My story: How I landed an 80% interview rate with 0 sales experience It was early 2020.

Pitch 78

Pitch Follow-up Sales Start-ups 78

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2019

Great for sales reps looking to hit their quota. If there was budget to burn, it would have already been burnt earlier in the month of December. And even if there is budget left, you generally can’t burn it on a recurring revenue product. Mediocre sales teams don’t close much at the very end of the year.

Intrinsic 130

Intrinsic Pitch Contract Quota 130

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2023

Well at a practical level, many SaaS companies are doing a Strategic Sales & Marketing Retreat. What’s a Strategic Sales & Marketing Retreat? Second, you slow or stop sales hiring. Third, you often increase quotas in sales. Even in tougher times, at least put as much into Sales & Marketing as you can afford.

Strategize 112

Strategize Territory Referrals Quota 112

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

Finally, the worst bad news to hide is that you are running out of money at a much faster rate than anticipated. Don’t hide the burn rate. You know when the burn is too high. You know when that fancy VP of Sales you hired isn’t going to work out. Share it as soon as you have it. As a founder, you know.

Start-ups 138

Start-ups Follow-up Trust Meeting 138

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

People got burned the most in fintech because the margins were lower and burn rates were higher,” Lemkin shares. Let’s say you’re burning $1M/month with $20M in the bank. So, this person tweaks the numbers in Q4 to show sales increasing, costs staying consistent, and burn going down.

Finance 94

Finance Growth Meeting Trust 94

SaaStr

JULY 26, 2022

Don’t need as much sales experience on sales team. I see this again and again with fast-growing SaaS companies selling to SMBs and they know it, but they don’t change or evolve enough, or fast enough, and get caught in a Churn Trap once growth slows from top-tier rates. There is often just 1 stakeholder to sell to.

Growth 143

Growth Start-ups Up-sell Strategize 143

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Customer Patterns, Sales & Marketing, and Leadership Roles So how are consumer habits in 2023? But I think we’re overcutting in marketing by not empowering people to have budgets, and we’re doing the same in sales.” Don’t make impossible demands of the sales team. Are customers spending enough money to support high growth?

Conversion 80

Conversion Angle Healthcare Strategize 80

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Some engineers by training, others in sales or product originally. The best founders are hyper aware of the burn rate and runway and manage to it. The most successful entrepreneurs I’ve invested in (6+ unicorns, 3 billion+ exits) are very different in many ways. Some extroverts, some introverts. Can See The Future.

Engineering 88

Engineering Presentation Product Customers 88

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2023

How do you win with a high-velocity sales strategy in a fast-moving, competitive market? In a special session of Workshop Wednesday, Gorgias Founder & CEO Romain Lapeyre and Gorgias VP of Sales & Partnerships Aasif Osmany share their learnings, advice, and hacks for optimizing your sales process. Sign up for free.

Objectives and Key Results 67

Objectives and Key Results E-commerce Quota Sales 67

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2022

The reality is though, in SaaS, especially if you are primarily sales-driven, that’s often gonna be tough. Then, past a certain point, you’ll probably be able to operate cash-flow positive or at least at a fairly low-stress burn rate. Pay Sales Bonuses When Cash is Received, Not Upon Signed Contract.

Commission 110

Commission Finance Contract Engineering 110