Slides from my presentation at SaaStock Berlin 2018.

1. Servus.
Bonjour
Tere päevast
Tach.

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#BadStockPhotosOfMyJob

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SaaS& Marketplaces

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9 Learnings from 10 Years
of SaaS Investing

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1. Fundraising

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You get a
Term Sheet
nobody wants
to invest
everybody wants
to invest
Time
Investor interest

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Learning #1
Create a killer deck
Be on top of your KPIs
Run a process

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2. Product/Market Fit

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Time
PMF
How you
get to PMF
How it’s probably
gonna look like
think you’ll
Getting to PMF

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Learning #2
The road to PMF can
be long and bumpy.
Don’t try to scale
before you have PMF.

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3. Pricing

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SMB vs. Enterprise Pricing
How you should
be pricing
SMBs Enterprises
Your pricing
Price
SMBs Enterprises

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Learning #3
Ask enterprise
customers for more $$$.
Increase the spread
between your entry plan
and your higher tiers.

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4. Scaling paid acquisition

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Scaling paid marketing
Marketing spend
CACs
Your projections
Your actuals

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Learning #4
Don’t assume that PPC will scale.
Invest in product and content.
NPS matters.
If ARPA big enough, try
outbound sales.

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5. Hiring a VP of Sales

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„The 48 Types of VP Sales“
YOU

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Learning #5
Your 1st VP of Sales is
probably you.
Then, find one who can get
you to $10-20M ARR.
Always hire for the right stage.

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6. Rebuilding

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Rebuilding your product
How long you estimate it will take
How long it
will actually
take
0 1 2 3 4 5
0
2
4
6
8
10

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Learning #6
Fixing your racing car
while driving 200 mph is
hard … but you can’t afford
to take a break.

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7. Getting to $100M in ARR

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Which animal are you hunting?
ARPA
(in $ per year)
# of customers
(in 1,000s)
10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000
10
1
100
1,000
10,000

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Learning #7
Know what animal(s)
you’re hunting.
Align your CACs (and
CoGS!) with your ARPA.

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8. Startup graveyard

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Escaping startup graveyard
CACs
LTV

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Learning #8
Align your CACs with
your ARPA.
(yeah, sorry, I said this already, but this is
important)

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9. Power Law

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Power Law
Company rank
Return
How you think
What it really
looks like
301 15
Power Law looks like

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Learning #9
VCs only invest in companies
with homerun potential.
If you’re not trying to build a
$100M+ ARR company, don’t
try to raise VC.

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Thank you!
More SaaS learnings:
www.saaslearnings.com
www.theangelvc.net
Questions?
christoph@pointnine.vc

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Bonus slides

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Should I go through an accelerator?
Is it YC? YES
No
Go for it!
Do they
want
> 6%?
YES RUN AWAY!!!
No
Think
about it

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Finding good engineers
engineers looking
for a new job
open positions

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Contracts
Number of pages
% of pages with a
>0 chance of ever
becoming relevant.
100%
0%
50%
1 200100
Legal fees
¤5k
¤100k

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When corporates discover „entrepreneurship“
We need more innovation!
Let’s start a
Corporate VC.
Let’s spin.-off the VC.
oops, we’re not attracting the
best and the brightest.
Let’s start an incubator.
Let’s do an
„intrapreneur program“
oops, we’re not attracting the
best and the brightest.
oops, we’re not attracting the
best and the brightest.