Scaling SaaS -- from SaaStr
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
SaaStr 106: Why Early Stage SaaS Metrics Do Not Matter, The 5 Things To Look For In Early Stage SaaS Companies & How To Negotiate A Term Sheet The Right Way with Alex Rosen, Managing Director @ IDG Ventures
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SaaStr 106: Why Early Stage SaaS Metrics Do Not Matter, The 5 Things To Look For In Early Stage SaaS Companies & How To Negotiate A Term Sheet The Right Way with Alex Rosen, Managing Director @ IDG Ventures

Alex Rosen is a Managing Director with IDG Ventures where he focuses on investments in cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications, ad tech, and consumer marketplaces. Alex currently serves as board director at Chubbies, Krux, MindMeld, Minted, Smartling, Tempered Networks, and Uplift. He also led IDG Ventures’ investments in multiple companies including Appboy, Datanyze, Indiegogo, Nuzzel, The League and many more incredible companies. Previously, he was a General Partner at Sprout Group, where he was head of the Internet and Software group. Huge thanks to the team @ Sapphire Ventures for the intro to Alex today.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

  • How did Alex make his way into the world of SaaS investing and come to be Managing Director @ IDG?

  • SaaS businesses can be massively affected by changes in a few very small data points. So what would you say is one of the single most important metric points?

  • What is a booking? How should we break it down into the 3 different MRRs? What element of those metrics do you want to see growing?

  • How important a role does unit economics play? What are the couple of forms: customer + sales person? How much ARR should a good sales rep add to in ARR in relation to comp?

  • What is negative churn? How can you take a customer you have already sold and make more money from them? Upsell or cross-sell? What does this to the pricing axis? Why do you want more than 1 axis?

60 Second SaaStr

  1. What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?

  2. What are the greenfield opportunities in SaaS for Alex?

  3. What is Alex’s fave SaaS reading material?

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Alex Rosen

Scaling SaaS -- from SaaStr
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
The Official SaaStr Podcast is the latest and greatest from the world of SaaStr, interviewing the most prominent operators and investors to discover their tips, tactics and strategies to attain success in the fiercely competitive world of SaaS. On the side of the operators, we center around getting from $0 to $100m ARR faster, what it takes to scale successfully and what are the core elements of hiring. As for the investors, we learn what metrics they hone in on when examining SaaS business, what type of metrics excites them and what they look for in SaaS founders.