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Entrepreneurship

A Business Lifeboat Strategy

A Business Lifeboat Strategy

By Denis Pombriant on January 24, 2021

In 1790, at about the inception of the US Constitution, the American lumber industry was centered in Maine, then part of Massachusetts. Overharvesting timber to meet the demands of a growing domestic market as well as a robust international market for ship masts, planking and other naval stores eventually started the industry’s westward migration, first to the […]

Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged Business, Constitution, economics, Entrepreneurship, Politics

Eating My Own SaaStr Dogfood: Why I Invested in RainforestQA

Eating My Own SaaStr Dogfood: Why I Invested in RainforestQA

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 19, 2015

To keep me honest (in this age of misremembering just which helicopter one was on), I want to continue our small series re: investments where I’ve put more that $1m into a SaaS company, and why I did it as examples of the SaaStr themes and learnings. My most recent investment here is a company called RainforestQA. […]

Posted in Business | Tagged case studies, Entrepreneurship, SaaS, SaaStr, startups

That Super-Successful VP of Sales.  Great?  Or Just Lucky?

That Super-Successful VP of Sales. Great? Or Just Lucky?

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 18, 2015

I get sent this resume to review all the time.  Director+ of Sales at Yammer / Salesforce / Successfactors / Pick Your Brand Name SaaS Company.  Took Hot Start-Up from $0 to $30m as VPS from Day 0.  Was there “early” through IPO and did amazing things. That all sounds impressive, for sure.  But was […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Building a Sales Team, Entrepreneurship, Hiring & Retention, SaaS, SaaStr, sales, startups

Summary of the 4Q14 Fenwick & West VC Survey

Summary of the 4Q14 Fenwick & West VC Survey

By Dave Kellogg on February 18, 2015

Because I was reading it and had a minute, I thought I’d do a quick post summarizing the 4Q14 Fenwick & West Silicon Valley Venture Capital Survey (PDF).  As the name indicates, this is an ongoing quarterly survey  on the state of venture capital that pulls from many sources, integrating lots of data into a single […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Entrepreneurship, finance, startups, Venture Capital

At Even Just $1m ARR — You Need to Stop Doing Low ROI Things

At Even Just $1m ARR — You Need to Stop Doing Low ROI Things

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 12, 2015

In SaaS, I think one of the biggest traps you can get yourself into as a founder is doing Low ROI things for one minute longer than you have to. Of course, this is true in all start-ups.  But quickly in SaaS it becomes worse.  Why?  Because they are more functional areas to handle, earlier. […]

Posted in Business | Tagged aaron levie, Entrepreneurship, Getting to Initial Scale, SaaS, SaaStr, startups

Roundtrip Revenue:  Probably, Just Do It.

Roundtrip Revenue: Probably, Just Do It.

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 5, 2015

If you’ve been around since the Web 1.0 days, a certain phrase may send shivers up your spine — “Roundtrip Revenue.”  People went to jail at AOL for this, folks, overstating revenue by as much as $1 billion that wasn’t really real.  It was just matched against AOL purchases, making the revenues in essence nonexistent. […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Entrepreneurship, revenue recognition, roundtrip revenue, SaaS, SaaStr, startups

Ok, We’ve Shut Registration Down at 1,850 Folks for The SaaStr Annual.  What You Need to Know.

Ok, We’ve Shut Registration Down at 1,850 Folks for The SaaStr Annual. What You Need to Know.

By Jason M. Lemkin on February 4, 2015

Phew.  Ok well we went a bit over capacity, but we’ll have 1,850 SaaS founders, CEOs, execs and entrepreneurs at the (first?) SaaStr Annual this Thursday in San Francisco at The Regency Ballroom. A few things to know, if your coming, and if you’re not: > If you’re coming to the day sessions, come early […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Entrepreneurship, events, SaaS, SaaStr, startups

Why CAC is Usually Irrelevant in Early-ish Stage SaaS Companies (vs. B2C Where It’s Critical)

Why CAC is Usually Irrelevant in Early-ish Stage SaaS Companies (vs. B2C Where It’s Critical)

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 30, 2015

I recently meet with a very high-growth “XaaS” company.  Not software as a service, but one that provides some version of humans-as-a-service.  And after huge top-line growth, they were struggling now with CAC.  They’d fueled their hyper growth with a combination of Adwords and Groupons and Facebook Ads and Twitter Cards.  And when that party […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Entrepreneurship, Marketing & Partnerships, Metrics & Operations, SaaS, SaaStr, sales, startups

How to Ensure Your First 2 Sales Reps Actually Work Out

How to Ensure Your First 2 Sales Reps Actually Work Out

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 28, 2015

A long-time reader, first time caller recently wrote in to ask a question that pretty much everyone asks some variant of: If you had to force rank these items in terms of what we should primarily be looking for in these first sales reps, how would you rank them? – has sold SaaS before (as […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Building a Sales Team, Entrepreneurship, Hiring & Retention, SaaS, SaaStr, sales, startups

All These Enterprise IPOs:  Why It’s Just Getting Good.  Why These are The Best of Times for SaaS.

All These Enterprise IPOs: Why It’s Just Getting Good. Why These are The Best of Times for SaaS.

By Jason M. Lemkin on January 16, 2015

Reading the tech press you might get the sense that The Enterprise is something they are sort of forced to write about because it’s having a good run.  We had a great Consumer run, a nice set of Multi-Billion Dollar deals around Social Networking, a WhatsApp/Snapchat fad around mobile messaging, an Alibaba, Instacart, Fab-ulous e-commerce […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Box, Eloqua, Entrepreneurship, HubSpot, Influitive, IPO, SaaS, SaaStr, software as a service, startups

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