The first to hit $100B in market cap
The first to do $10B+ in ARR (and only so far)
And yet, in many ways we know >less< about Salesforce that we used to
It's not just a CRM anymore
5 Interesting Learnings:
#1. 73% of Salesforce’s customers come from the installed base. Let that sink in.
This is why in the end, Net Revenue Retention is the #1 most important metric in SaaS.
This also means that Salesforce could basically still hit 73% of its plan with 0 new customers.
Put differently, their 2017 customers have, as a cohort, grown 2.1x
#2. Salesforce’s upsell is split about 50/50 between new seats and new products.
In the early days, you’ll probably only have new seats to sell.
But eventually, you’ll probably need a second or third product to sell. We talked about this re: Veeva, Twilio and more here:
#3. The more products you sell, really, the more problems you solve — the more you make.
This is something a bit non-obvious. Salesforce’s customers that buy > 1 product overall, spend a stunning 10x more.
This skews a lot b/c the customers that buy more “Clouds” from Salesforce are bigger companies. Still, the more big problems you solve, the much more you make.
We also saw this Box, where NRR was >profoundly< higher when customers bought 2-3+ products beyond core Box product
#4. Salesforce has >2,000+ customers that spend $1m annually.
That’s a lot more than the 500 in the “Fortune 500”. As you begin to go upmarket ... assume you have at least 2000+ mega-accounts to target.
No excuses.
#5. Salesforce’s largest customers are growing the fastest.
Salesforce also has 200+ Customers that spend $10m+ and ~40 spending $20m+ annually.
So when you start to go upmarket, lean in here. It can last for decades
And finally, bonus point:
"Sales" is only Salesforce's #3 product line. And it's slowest growing at +16% YoY.
Your TAM over time is what you make of it, folks.
A deeper dive here on how to build your own $100B+ SaaS company:
We all love Atlassian ... the $60B SaaS leader that came out of Australia, not SF ... with 2 co-CEOs ... that was basically bootstrapped ... that spends its $$$ on R&D, not sales
Atlassian has now crossed $2B in ARR
5 Interesting Learnings about where Atlassian is now:
#1. SEO, brand and content continue to work at scale.
Atlassian had 21m unique viewers to its website last year, up 30% year-over-year.
A vivid reminder that investments in content and brand pay dividends … forever.
#2. It’s never too late to add a Free edition -- if it's great
Atlassian was relatively late to adding free editions for some of its products, starting in March 2020 (!). But it’s working now. Sign-ups tripled
Atlassian sees Free as key engine of growth for the next decade
I really don’t care at all losing all my money on any investment
So long as
The founders truly gave it all
Never quit
Didn’t just do it “on their terms”
Went wherever customers took them
Never left a lead on the table
Never stopped recruiting
Spent it like it was their money
Actually I’ve never lost money when this was all true
Where I’ve lost money:
- Founders burned money just to hit the plan
- Founders fired people they shouldn’t have
- Founders argued among themselves
- Founders blamed others
- Founders thought money would solve their problems
Where I’ve had a mediocre outcome:
- Founders didn’t want to go enterprise when customers did
- Founders didn’t drive down churn
- Founders didn’t talk to customers every single week
- Founders didn’t recruit VPs after $2m-$3m ARR
- Founders too arrogant in fundraising