Hot of the press! Openview’s 2023 SaaS benchmarks report dropped this week and the data highlights highs-and-lows of the industry. Before you get too lost in the weeds, here are three takeays I think you should double-click into.
1) Focus on Expansion Revenue for Scaled Growth.
Mature SaaS companies are finding more growth opportunities in expanding their existing customer base rather than solely relying on new acquisitions.
Consider doubling-down your upsell and cross-sell strategies to efficiently drive net new growth and your dollar retention value.
2) Embrace Profitability as a Growth Lever.
With growth rates declining, especially for companies with more than $5M in ARR, profitability became the top play for most SaaS companies.
Balancing customer acquisition costs with long-term financial health is key to achieving sustainable growth.
3) Adapt to the New Growth Rate Realities.
The era of skyrocketing growth rates is tempering down across all SaaS segments.
As you plan for 2024, adapt your growth strategies and expectations to the 'new normal', ensuring your business plans are resilient and grounded in the current market conditions.
Drum roll, please! The GPTs have arrived. The recent advancements in ChatGPT plugins have opened a new horizon for research, content creation, and data analysis. These plugins not only streamline marketing efforts but also amplify the effectiveness of your content strategies. Understanding and utilizing these cutting-edge tools could be your game-changer in generating impact quicker.
Vanity metrics can damage the credibility of marketing teams by failing to show its true impact on business growth. To tell the story of marketing’s contribution to revenue, consider reporting on the following – 1) pre-funnel metrics, 2) journey analytics, and 3) program attribution. This article breaks down the KPIs in each bucket and why they’re important.
Got a minute to up your game in product onboarding? Check this out. It's packed with solid insights, and here's something that caught my eye – dive into what your competitors are doing. You heard it, regularly checking out how the other companies onboard their users can throw up some smart moves to borrow and make your own.
In a PLG motion, your winning move is nailing user activation. How you ask? Get granular with your data, using it to refine the user experience and make every interaction count. Keep evolving with constant feedback, ensuring your product stays ahead and relevant.
OpenAI had it’s App store moment this week. Buried under the roaring cheers, Sam Altman made many exciting announcements. Here’s a quick take on some new releases.
1) OpenAI announces GPT-4 Turbo, and man is it supercharged. The new model has increased context length and was trained on more recent data. 2) Faster, cheaper, plus more powerful – sign me up! The new model will be 3x cheaper for input tokens, and 2x cheaper for output tokens.
Warning – this is a hot take. Conventions are meant to be broken, and those in SaaS are no exceptions. As GenAI continues to progress, barriers like domain expertise and startup costs are eroding, leaving behind a leveled playing field for new entrants. But that also means more competition for existing players.
Amelia
Ibarra
@
SaaStr ai
From out of left field, HubSpot has made an unexpected move by acquiring Clearbit, a B2B data provider.
What does this mean for the industry? Could this be a strategic power play or simply an added layer to HubSpot’s many “hubs” model?
Here’s one take ponder while you sip your morning coffee or tea.
The Diminishing Value of Traditional SaaS Defenses.
As AI disrupts the traditional 'moats' of SaaS businesses, proprietary data sources are increasingly crucial for sustaining a competitive edge.
Data-Driven Enhancement of Product-Led Sales.
Integrating enriched contact data with product-qualified accounts could streamline the sales process and improve cost-efficiency (i.e., lower your CAC).
AI-Enhanced Customer Engagement Becomes the New Battleground.
To stay competitive, it's vital to continually update customer engagement tactics with AI, aiming to surpass current customer expectations.
Leveraging different types of content can enhance your Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy. Blog posts, for instance, are effective for customer acquisition and improving SEO, and product documentation is excellent for customer retention. Understanding each content type's purpose allows you to align your efforts with specific stages of the self-service funnel, fostering growth and engagement.
Like all superheroes, Product-Led Growth (PLG) has its own origin story. It emerged from OpenView and evolved from being seen as a risky investment to becoming an essential strategy for achieving sustainable growth. Beyond the history lesson, this article goes into how to craft an effective PLG strategy and highlights some companies that are crushing it.
In the cutthroat arena of Marketing-tech, Ahrefs lays out how it achieved $100 million in ARR. With a product-focused approach and clever content marketing, Ahrefs has effectively married in-depth product insights with educational material. This has helped the company not only reduce customer turnover but also drive sustainable growth.
Attracting new clicks is just the start; the real challenge is making every visit meaningful. This means optimizing the user experience to turn casual browsers into engaged visitors. How? By tailoring your content to address the specific needs of your audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Here’s a look at strategies that can help you achieve just that.
A common question among SaaS companies is whether to develop in-house AI solutions or leverage third-party tools. Like most strategic inquiries posed to a VC, the answer is it depends. However, when considering incorporating AI tools, be mindful of data security and legal implications. Opting for providers known for their reliability and emphasis on legal security is crucial.
Sequoia Capital has significantly shifted its investment focus toward AI startups, now representing 60% of its portfolio in 2023. This strategy from Sequoia provides a glimpse into the evolving landscape of SaaS products and underscores the importance of integrating AI into their growth strategies — one of many indications pointing in this direction.
I found that words are easier to sell than code. In my past life, I would spend months pushing code before publishing content, only to discover my ideas didn't resonate. Long story short…those products are buried in my virtual backyard.
Dive into what prompted me to write a newsletter and the big takeaway I learned after a year of running it (the third lesson is my favorite) 👇.
Lesson 1 - Value starts with your content, not with your product—that’s how you build trust.
Lesson 2 - Lead with your story, not with your solution—it saves you time before launching.
Lesson 3 - Growing an audience is really hard–but the key to its success is showing up every day.
