Matthias Vosen

This table by Antler allows to guide founders on how much to raise in their first round. You can use it to form an initial understanding, but keep in mind: 1. The numbers are German, so they’re conservative. 2. The numbers are from last year. But as a starting point for research, they are definitely useful. #Startups #Fundraising #Entrepreneurship #Founder #Traction

5

1 Kommentar

🙃 💸 Flink raised $1.5B... and is now valued at less than $1B Let's move beyond the snarky comments of how such a feat is possible. The German quick-commerce startup just raised an additional $150M. And that's actually quite interesting: 1️⃣ If valuation has been slashed (from a peak at $5B) to below $1B, it is a first sign of maturity. 2️⃣ There is a focus on profitability: the startup has broken even in its two main markets: Germany and The Netherlands. It wants to use the money to further strengthen its position there. Done are the days when startups were only focusing on growth and expansion. 3️⃣ That's the last European pure player operating in Europe (JOKR now only operates in Latin America). It is also among the last players operating at scale in developed economies. So, what it does and how successfully it can grow will be key to the future of quick-commerce. 📈 I am quite confident in the future of quick-commerce. It answers a consumer need, but it needs to be operated with care, notably in developed economies, due to high labour costs. 👉 : https://lnkd.in/gmpcNhNP #startup #commerce #grocery #delivery #foodtech

29

What if you can do 3500 Google Searches at once? 🤩  Modern prospecting at scale with Clay!    Here’s what’s happening:  I am attending Bits & Pretzels 2024 together with #BreakingGrounds. Super exciting!    Lots of people I want to meet and want to set up a bunch of meetings before I even get to Munich.    The problem: I got a list of names and companies, but no contact info.    3500 attendees and not a single usable lead.    Here’s where Clay is SUPER useful.    Using the “Find and Enrich Person from Google” I get an army of robots that found over 90% of the LinkedIn accounts of the leads in less than 20 minutes!    Now all that’s left is to craft a quick intro sequence and load them into HeyGen.    Basically in less than 2 hours, I’ve guaranteed myself an epic conference in Munich!

26

14 Kommentare

“Let’s do it” Sam said from the other end of the globe. 24 days later we 20x'ed their inbound leads in DACH. Quick context: Sam is leading marketing at Loxo. Crushing it in the US. Growing quickly. But not in DACH: “Germany was one of many EMEA countries we targeted with US ads” he told me. And that's exactly the problem. It’s almost “common practice” for US companies to clone their US playbooks for EMEA and DACH. Sadly, it doesn’t work. Here’s what DOES work (for companies like Loxo): 1/ Localizing creative strategy We looked at their value proposition canvas, competitors, campaign concept, messaging, landing pages, and everything else they shot at us. And we had to kill the one metaphor that performed really well in the US: Bigfoot. Because it’s not relevant in DACH. 2/ Creating a kick-ass landing page When going into a new market like DACH, you don’t need to overengineer it. Start small, but at least do the bare minimum: Localizing one landing page that truly speaks to the German buyer. That’s exactly what we did. 3/ One channel, one campaign Next, create a unique campaign for this market. You can use learnings from US creatives. But they need to be adapted to local culture and knowledge. Enhanced creative, different messaging. Prior to working with us, Loxo generated 1 hand-raiser (that’s an inbound demo request) in 30 days. After our relaunch, we generated 20 hand-raisers in only 24 days. And 7x'ed their pipeline. And already won 2 perfect-fit customers. Because actual business impact is all that matters. Simply cloning your US playbooks and targeting doesn't work. You need to develop a fine-tuned Revenue Marketing engine specifically for DACH. Ready to break through plateaus and crush your sales targets? PS: Sam Kuehnle went into much more detail in his latest substack newsletter, it's worth a read (link in comments). PPS: Data from this post is from today, 29th of April. That's why numbers are different than in the screenshot. #revenuemarketing

52

2 Kommentare

This is insane! In Germany 🇩🇪, if your startup has closed a VC funding round a notary will read every single word of the docs out loud in front of founders 😳 I couldn't believe it, so I had to verify it. It's 100% true: "In Germany, a notary is required to read out the entire document aloud to all parties present during the notarization process, ensuring everyone fully understands the legal terms and implications before signing". It seems Germany isn't serious about startups... h/t Nathan Benaich for calling this out P.S. check out 🔔linas.substack.com🔔, it's the only newsletter you need for all things when Finance meets Technology. For founders, builders, and leaders.

4

🇺🇸🇪🇺Why are there so few enterprise SaaS founders in Europe compared to the U.S.? ------------------------------------------------------------------ I recently had an interesting discussion with a SaaS founder about how the U.S. market seems much more welcoming to enterprise-focused SaaS compared to Europe. In Europe, building enterprise software is possible, but it’s much harder, and fewer founders are building such SaaS software. Fundamentally, I think it boils down to two major aspects: 🏢 The difference between U.S. and European enterprises in terms of budget, market fragmentation, and risk-taking. 🤗 The lack of an "enterprise software" culture among entrepreneurs and VCs in Europe (especially at early stage). 1️⃣ When it comes to software spending, data from the latest Cledara report supports this idea. The report shows that companies with 200+ employees in the U.S. spend an average of $690k on software, while their European counterparts spend around $490k (see the attached graph). This aligns with a Gartner study, which indicates that U.S. companies typically allocate 3-4% of their revenue to IT, whereas European companies spend around 2-3%. So yes, U.S. enterprises spend significantly more on software than European ones, creating greater revenue opportunities for enterprise software startups. 2️⃣ Another key aspect is market fragmentation. Although Europe may have more enterprises overall than the U.S. (around 40,000 companies with 500+ employees in Europe compared to about 20,000 in the U.S.), the European market is highly fragmented. For instance, Germany has the highest concentration of enterprises, with approximately 10,000 companies with 500+ employees, followed by France, with fewer than 5,000. 3️⃣ In terms of risk-taking, U.S. enterprises have a much stronger culture of technology adoption, especially in large companies, compared to Europe. Many founders in Europe get stuck in "innovation programs" or "proof-of-concept purgatories" when working with enterprises. Although risk tolerance among European enterprises has improved over the past decade, it still lags far behind the American “spirit”. 4️⃣ A consequence of the previous aspects is that there are fewer founders and startup employees in Europe with experience in building enterprise-grade software. Europe's SaaS entrepreneurial culture is much stronger in the SMB/mid-market segment than in enterprise-level SaaS. It’s the same for early stage European VCs, who also tend to favor SMB/mid-market focused SaaS over enterprise solutions. Investments in enterprise-grade software typically come at a much later stage (series A / B), mostly when startups have already moved upmarket.

21

1 Kommentar

Christoph Janz and the team at Point Nine publish the SaaS Funding Napkin which is a brilliant guide to the metrics VCs are looking for in startups. But I often wonder what industry leading growth and margins look like for mature private (public is easy) software/SaaS companies. Well, here's an answer. I screened across c300 software cos with £5m+ revenues on MarktoMarket. I split the sample into quartiles. Top quartile yoy growth was a median of 49%. Top quartile EBITDA margin was 21%. Mystery solved! PS Top Quartile LTM Growth and CAGR both recording 49% looks weird. This is due to slightly different samples as not all the companies had 5 year track records. If you use the companies that DO all have a 5 year track record, LTM growth by quartile is 40%, 14%, 7% and -9%. #saas #valuation #venturecapital #corporatefinance Mark Hogarth Aidan MacMillan Cahal Dowds Richard Gladwin Olga Melnyk Bradley Evans Kathryn Stevenson Shaun Missenden Ewan R.

13

2 Kommentare

Hitting sales targets in May with all the public holidays can feel like such a grind 🏃🏻‍♀️ Here’s what we do at SDRs of Germany when it’s crunch time: — We check in with our most promising deals (Pipedrive’s new AI Deal Spot Feature massively helps us to identify them). — We prospect together and see if we can make use of our network to accelerate deals. — We double down on quality and personalisation, including video selling and voice notes. — We make sure we focus on revenue generating activities and prioritise correctly. And the most important thing: We remember we are not heart surgeons, so no one will die if we don’t hit it — as long as we give it our all and enjoy the party, we can always over perform next month 😜 Good luck to everyone who is still chasing those numbers — you got this 💪🏻 #saleslove

96

3 Kommentare

The best way to sell B2B software in a new geography? It depends. Startups have typically a couple of choices: 1. Build their own on-the-ground sales force day one 2. Alternatively: + Enter new markets via a partnership + Rev-led: Fly in and out until you acquire sufficient logos to justify investing in boots on the ground. The general advice is to build your own team day one. I believe more should consider the latter. For one, most expansions take some time and cost. Especially if It is not clear if there is PMF for that market. Going into a market where you typically have no edge or existing relationship. Recruiting takes time and training takes even more time. Complying with local regulations can also become an obstacle. Some industries like construction are dominated by large customers and suppliers; breaking through might be difficult. That’s why some firms choose to work with system integrators/resellers or expand with existing customers. 🔸 These relationships can be outcome-based, you pay when results are delivered. 🔸 They provide an inroad into a new market where they are already savvy if your brand reputation there is not as visible 🔸 You can run these strategies in tandem while building your own sales teams By going light on a sales team and working with multiple SIs and existing customers, you reduce risk and get to learn along the way. Naturally this strategy works only if your software is mature to the point someone else can sell it for you. It’s definitely one more startups can consider especially for ones expanding in regions like Southeast Asia where markets are more fragmented. What’s your take?

134

52 Kommentare

📣 Free founders-only event below! I often see founders get a lot of early traction in signing customers and then hit a wall when trying to scale that repeatedly. Why?? Maybe it's because: 1️⃣ that 1st group of customers came through warm intros from your accelerator batch 2️⃣ you've already combed through industry connections from your previous career 3️⃣ you're just good at brute-force selling but you're only one person 4️⃣ you are still narrowing in on product market fit Next week I'm hosting a free, founders-only candid discussion with two people who have had to break through this wall out of necessity and now coach countless founders on this. More on our speakers: 📈 Ian Illig took his 1st job out of college at a friend's startup (employee #1). He quickly found himself trying to sell a product that was still finding its market fit. Fast forward years later and Ian had completely built out the sales team and revenue, allowing the company to get acquired. And then he turned around and did the same thing again with the same founding team. 👀 Sonia Baschez was one of the 1st employees at Atmos, a consumer & builder-facing product for homebuilding. She developed early marketing channels & helped the company grow from Pre-seed to Series A. Sonia optimized product launches to reach the right customers, a challenging feat given their core customers are actively NOT in the tech bubble (aka Techcrunch and a thread on X are not going to do the trick). Whether they know it or not, both Ian and Sonia have been secret superpowers for me as I've grown The Council Fund and supported portfolio companies. I'm excited to share their playbooks & expertise with founders for FREE next Wednesday. Join us 12-1pm Pacific! Link to RSVP in comments below ;)

52

3 Kommentare

Should you as a founder show vulnerability/unhingedness in front of VCs and let your guard down? Short answer: 9 out of 10 times, no, unless you're very visibly the sort of founder nobody would wanna bet against (read visibly great results). Longer answer: VCs are in the pattern recognition business. They're not just looking for patterns in your business model and product and market, but in your personal traits, too. If they're gonna have 1 or very few interactions with you, and your guard is down in those few instances, they could perceive you as weak, possibly incompetent or too inexperienced. They may not tell you, but pattern recognition works that way. One may argue that VCs who have been in the game for a long time may have dropped these biases (to adopt new ones), but I'd argue those VCs are less than 10 or 20% of all VCs. Every VC secretly wishes you're the founder they can invest in right now, but subconsciously they kinda have to look for reasons not to. And they do so by thinking of all the past founders they invested in, how those founders looked/sounded/acted like and whether you're kinda similar or different. The traits of a competent person in a low moment may be hardly distinguishable from those of an incompetent person. Add gender, ethnicity, accent, what you're wearing, where you worked at, and the culture of dynamics of the region the VC is in to the mix and boom. It becomes a mess. The only time when it's probably okay to let your guard down might be when you have established a relationship with them over a long time and your results have spoken for themselves or you are extremely in control of your public persona, so your personality, no matter how "differentiated" won't negatively affect the process 😅 It's very common for founders to be...weird, and in places like Southeast Asia this is not very often talked about so I thought I'd share :D The best people to be vulnerable/completely unfiltered with are nobody but other founders. That's why we've built LL. You get your own small tech CEO peer group with frequent video calls, and access to a broader community that's super supportive. Sign up today to get your CEO peer group – link in comments 💥

22

3 Kommentare

I’ve worked with 400+ B2B SaaS CEOs in the last 7 years. (One question keeps coming up) "How to get ahead of the competition in a crowded market?" I explored this in my interview with an idealist punk who turned lawyer, then SaaS founder: Niklas Hanitsch, founder and CEO of SECJUR.   Here are my 7 highlights: 1 - Bootstrapping initially to focus on the business and what provides real customer value, instead of fundraising distractions. 2 - Not trying to build everything from scratch but using existing technologies where it makes sense. 3 - Maintaining a healthy company culture: Making values fit a disqualifier in hiring, regardless of a candidate's talent or experience. 4 - Using a risk matrix framework to improve team transparency, prioritization of decisions and alignment. 5 - Staying resourceful - enabling expansion to become a holistic compliance platform covering other frameworks as the GDPR market got crowded. 6 - Shifting away from growth at all costs to focus on balancing growth and profitability early on - especially in uncertain times. 7 - Doubling down on what works with a couple of small side bets and not getting carried away experimenting. Now, if you nodded at any of the 7 highlights, you’re on track. But if you didn’t. And you want to understand how well you’re positioned to stay ahead of the competition. DM me "AHEAD," and I'll send you the next step. Be Remarkable. P.S. The link to the interview is in the 1st comment below.

8

3 Kommentare

𝗪𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗮𝗦 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀. CAC, LTV, MRR, and churn rate have been north-star metrics for years—in today’s market, they're no longer enough. 𝗪𝗵𝘆? // There’s too much competition, raising CAC and making it harder to keep churn low with reduced customer loyalty, further decreasing expected LTV. // Customers expect more personalized services, increasing costs. // Market volatility affects spending habits, affecting MRR and churn unpredictably. // Prioritizing growth over profit sidelines important profitability metrics and puts a risk on long-term sustainability. Calculating the CAC payback period gives us insights into the efficiency and sustainability of our growth strategies. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗔𝗖 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱?  It’s the time it takes to recover the cost of acquiring a new customer through the revenue it generates. A shorter payback period indicates an efficient and sustainable business model. The average benchmark for SaaS is 16 months; while there is no “good” number, keeping on top of industry trends is beneficial. Micro SaaS firms should target 3 to 6mths... Shortening the CAC payback period improves cash flow, minimizes potential customer churn, accelerates growth, and increases investment appeal through quicker ROI. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁 ZoomInfo’s 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.  Their slowed revenue growth, coupled with a spike in churn, has extended their CAC payback period to an alarming 138 months 🚩 Indicating that CAC costs won't be recuperated for over a decade, limiting their flexibility to fund growth and further innovation. This scenario further underscores the need for SaaS to continuously optimize CAC and retention strategies to maintain a sustainable business model, especially in a volatile market. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱 𝗶𝘁: > Enhance conversion rates > Focus on high-quality leads > Optimize pricing strategies > Leverage automation and CRM to streamline operations > Refine marketing spend > Invest in PLG > Upsell, cross-sell, and boost retention With the rise of AI and competition, churn rise is inevitable.  Despite this, it’s still a promising market.  You just need to be proactive and adapt your strategies to survive and thrive in these changing economic conditions. Thanks to OnlyCFO for the insights! If you have a Micro SaaS and are exploring an exit, shoot me a message. Otherwise, follow for more awesome content. #SaaS #MicroSaaS #Startups #Strategy #Tech 

46

3 Kommentare

Hey Salespeople: Seeking best practices for B2B selling in Germany/DACH. I'll gather from comments into main post body here: - Prefer to buy from (local) German speakers (though some say this is becoming less critical than in the past) - Need examples of / references to similar customers using your solution successfully; far less willing to be an early adopter - Formality: Limited small talk. Be polite, respectful, and not overly-familiar. - Punctuality: Start on time / end on time - Detailed: More focused on technical details vs. marketing language. Facts & figures must be well supported. Be prepared to go deep in every meeting which means having a SME (sales engineer) involved from the start. Also, have plenty of robust collateral. - Quality-First: Quality and proven results are more important than price - More focused on security, privacy, & compliance - Process: Well structured sales process - Ensure your outreach is GDPR compliant. Respect do-not-call registries. Otherwise, cold calling is fine as long as your solution is relevant except in Austria. Cold-emailing is double opt-in (user signs up for list then clicks link in follow up email to confirm) and you must always provide an option to opt-out. - Provide local (German speaking) customer service - Legal negotiation tends to involve more back and forth; thus more expensive - Collaborative approach: Listen, discuss, and show expertise rather than assertively pitching.

19

26 Kommentare

There’s a SaaS German startup founded in 2015 called memtime. They currently have a presence in over 90 countries. They raised their Series A funding in the millions in 2023. A 9 year old company is called a startup. I mention this to remind naysayers that it takes a lifetime to build great companies and having proper funding is critical, it’s literally like birthing a child and raising them, it’s messy, expensive and often depressing but we do whatever it takes to make sure there’s progress. The amount of times, founders face ridicule for starting companies and the failure they experience is unnecessary. We can all do better in creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurs to progress… why? Because it’s one of the more sustainable ways of addressing poverty, unemployment and inequality. Commerce is the great equalizer when done with intention and a higher purpose. Ungavumi ngawe my fellow founder in this journey of building your startup (or small business) into something valuable in this world. Source: https://lnkd.in/dbqgDqPU Ngiyani ncanywa 🤟🏾 | #sharethecodes 📌

33

11 Kommentare

People often ask me, “How does WhyDonate stand out compared to other crowdfunding platforms?” It’s a tough question 🤔 There are lots of competitors, and many of them have massive budgets, bigger teams, and more name recognition. Sure, WhyDonate offers lower transaction fees, and we don’t charge anything for our features. But is pricing enough to set us apart? Here’s what I realized recently: it’s not our pricing, or even our features. It’s our support team. WhyDonate offers personalized, one-on-one support to every customer, 7 days a week. You can chat with us directly, or schedule a one-on-one call whenever you need help setting up your fundraiser or making a donation. And our customers notice. Just look at our Trustpilot reviews: 4.7/5 stars, with nearly every review mentioning our support team by name. In a world of automated responses and long wait times, real human support is rare. So if you’re looking for a donation platform where people care—WhyDonate has you covered. Big shout out to our customer support team Vaibhav, Sonali, Prabhudata, Rama, Rushikesh and Shreya 🙏 #CustomerSupport #WhyDonate #Crowdfunding #Fundraising #CrowdfundingPlatform #Donation

40

1 Kommentar

How to Increase Your App’s Engagement? For ChatGPT to reach a billion users, they’ll need to boost their engagement (WAU:MAU) to 80%+ up from ~40% today. Are there any precedents for such improvement? I analyzed the engagement of leading AI, consumer and enterprise apps over the last decade. Turns out increasing engagement is incredibly rare (kudos Duolingo moving up from 50 to 60%) It’s still early days for ChatGPT so I’m positive OpenAI team will find a way, but for sure that will involve adding significantly more value to its users!

23

2 Kommentare

I wish I had known that before I started a company! When we started SDRs of Germany we had a clear roadmap. The next 3 years were sorted (so we thought... 😅). And then... our value proposition evolved based on customer feedback. Our sales cycle evolved based on our deal analysis. Our team grew based on the revenue we made and the need we had. Within less than 12 months we had built a completely different version of our company than we first had imagined. By then we have spent money on long-term contracts and wasted energy on making things work with the wrong tools. If you're working for a start-up or are planning to start one, learn from our mistakes. Set yourself up for success by allowing yourself to stay flexible. That's why I am such a big fan of softwares like Pipedrive that allows Start-Ups like us to grow, adapt and change where needed while staying flexible on the way. You're looking for the right solution for your business? Awesome! Feel free to dm me or check out the link below for more infos on our CRM. #salestech #inspo #2024

75

4 Kommentare