Linear #003: Hiring A VP Sales, The Story Of Slack, SaaS Data From The Last 12 Months

One ‘How To’:

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How to Hire a Great First VP of Sales:

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One Biz Story:

The story of Slack, a popular business communication tool.

Eliot Rathe @eliot_rathe

Slack reached unicorn status ($1 billion valuation) with a team of 8 people. And it did so in less than 8 months They then got acquired for $27.7B (yes, billion) by Salesforce in 2020. How? With great marketing and a cockroach idea. Here’s the story 🧵

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One Vertical SaaS Breakdown:

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Interesting trends, reports, and observations you may have missed in b2b software over the past year:

1/ The Bessemer Cloud Index (ETF of public SaaS co's) is down 50% YoY

2/ SaaS Valuations are almost half of what they were a year ago

3/ Growth rates have slowed down as vc-backed companies focus on getting profitable

4/ Even with a lot of dry powder, venture investing is continuing to decline

5/ No one went public in 2022. Like no one

6/ Salesforce refused to give a forecast for 2023. "Things Are Too Unpredictable to Provide a Forecast” - Salesforce CFO LOL

7/ Tech layoffs exceeded COVID numbers and are expected to continue at a rapid clip

8/ There were still a few companies that bucked the market trends and surprised us all. Figma managed to get bought for $20B at 50x ARR. IN THIS MARKET! Crazy.

9/ Jasper AI and Drata were two more that bucked the trend, both raising big rounds at (likely) 2021 type of multiples.

10/ Chat GPT-3 launched and set the internet on fire. A ton of opportunity for SaaS companies to embed the technology

What are your predictions for 2023? A continued slide down? A rebound? Somewhere in between? Let me know your thoughts / predictions...

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