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15 Signs You Have A SaaS Metrics Problem (and How to Fix it) with Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital

By Amelia Ibarra
Wednesday, December 13, 2023 | Podcasts, Metrics

Numbers don’t lie, but sometimes the stories we tell around them do.

Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital and 25-year C-level veteran, shares the top 14 signs that you have a SaaS metrics problem, the five reasons those symptoms exist, and a SaaS metrics maturity model with five layers to help you move the needle at every stage.

First, let’s deep dive into the 15 ways that people misuse and abuse SaaS metrics. By understanding the problems, you can extract the solutions.

THE 15 SIGNS

5 Interesting Learnings from nCino at ~$500,000,000 in ARR

By Jason Lemkin
Wednesday, December 13, 2023 | 5 Interesting Things, Scale

5 Interesting Learnings from nCino at ~$500,000,000 in ARR

So if you are outside of fintech and banking, you may not have heard of nCino. But if you’re in the space, it’s a big player.

They’re at almost $500m in ARR, with 1,850 customers, now growing a modest but steady 19% and they have gotten pretty efficient, like most other public SaaS and Cloud leaders. Non-GAAP operating margins are now +17%.

They’ve made a few clever acquistions, but haven’t been immune to macro impacts. A year ago, growth was at 48%. Today it’s at 19%. Wall Street seems OK with the change however, as nCino is still valued at $3.3 Billon. Not a huge ARR multiple, but just above the 5x-6x average today.

Let’s dig in.

5 INTERESTING LEARNINGS

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SEASON'S SAVINGS

Altimeter: SaaS Growth Has Finally Rebounded. Albeit Only a Little Bit.

By Jason Lemkin
Wednesday, December 13, 2023 | Scale

Altimeter: SaaS Growth Has Finally Rebounded. Albeit Only a Little Bit.

So Jamin Ball at Altimeter Capital probably does the best job of tracking SaaS and Cloud metrics of public companies of anyone out there.

Pulling together new bookings data on all the leading SaaS and Cloud companies, here’s what you see:

New bookings started to decline rapidly in Q2’21, where they peaked — and hit a low in Q1’23.

But since then, they’ve bounced back, if modestly.

BOUNCING BACK

Salesforce: Your Job's at Risk If You Sell Less Than $400k a Year

By Jason Lemkin
Tuesday, December 12, 2023 | Growth, Sales

Salesforce: Your Job’s at Risk If You Sell Less Than $400k a Year

So quotas are relatively well understood, if sometimes complicated to get right in practice. Keybanc and Sapphire have some great overall metrics here.

Overall, the median AE closes $750,000 a year, and that’s actually up from 2022 — mainly due to hiring freezes and contractions.

And how many hit quota? While different data sources report different numbers, the companies themselves in the Keybanc Sapphire data report 80% hitting quota attainment. That sounds way too high to me, but it’s still useful to see the data represented cleanly here together.

One thing I’ve never really had much data on is exactly below what level of attainment sales reps typically are at risk of losing their jobs, however. 40% attainment? 30%?

Salesforce recently shared theirs in a Bloomberg article:

Their “PIPs” or being put on a performance plan to be managed out kick in now at the following performance levels:

After 1 quarter of underperformance in sales, not 5-6; and
If an enterprise rep closes less than $100k a quarter ($400k a year annualized); or
If an SMB rep closes less than $40k a quarter ($200k a year annualized)

That sounds a bit harsh on the surface, but it actually may be generous, as it likely ties to about 30%-40% attainment.

JOB RISK

Your 2024 Integrations Checklist

Providing robust integrations is an essential part of any B2B SaaS product strategy. Find out if you are ready for an embedded integration platform.

GET THE CHECKLIST

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Over 4,000 Now Signed up for FREE SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays!

By Jason Lemkin
Tuesday, December 12, 2023 | Blog Posts

Have you been attending our free, live Workshop Wednesdays with the best in SaaS?

The best of SaaS come every Wednesday at 10am PST on Zoom with hands on presentations, data, advice and live Q+A.

Speakers include 50+ cloud and SaaS leaders already:

Thomas Tunguz of Theory Ventures
Jamin Ball of Altimeter
Mark Roberge of Stage 2 Capital
MongoDB’s SVP of Sales Ops on Sales Compensation
Open AMAs with Jason Lemkin

and so, so much more!

WORKSHOP WEDNESDAYS

5 Steps to Build Your First GTM Playbook with Stage 2 Capital

By Amelia Ibarra
Tuesday, December 12, 2023 | Leadership, Workshop Wednesdays

The landscape for Go-to-Market (GTM) will be changing over the next 12 months in terms of roles within GTM, in combination with how buyers make purchases and the decision-makers involved.

During Workshop Wednesday, held every Wednesday at 10 a.m., Mandy Cole, Partner at Stage 2 Capital, shared the five steps every company needs to take to build their first GTM playbook centered around the buyer.

THE 5 STEPS

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