I attended the SaaSt event a few weeks back where multiple successful SaaS founders shared their journey of making their small Bootstrap SaaS enterprise to what they are now with multiple rounds of VC funding. What were the mistakes which they made which could have been avoided or what great practices they adopted were explained? VC’s also shared insights on what do they look for at various stages of funding while investing in a SaaS company. Overall it was quite an insightful event and learnings which I have summarized in my presentation can be of immense value to any SaaS enterprise or StartUps looking to grow exponentially. https://medium.com/@bhatnagarapurv17/top-10-lessons-from-saas-enterprises-founders-how-to-ensure-the-success-of-your-saas-enterprise-87b42480f3f7

1. How to ensure the success of
your SaaS enterprise and take it
from Bootstrap to VC funding:
Top 10 lessons from SaaS
enterprises founders

2. Zenoti Journey from small Indian Startup to a
Global company with presence in 49 countries
and Multiple rounds of VC funding - Lessons from
Sudheer Koneru (CEO & Co-founder), Anand
Arvind (VP, Operations & Co-founder) and
Vamshidhar Reddy(VP, Product))
• “It is critical to understand TAM (Total Addressable Market)
for your identified Target Micro segment. It is important not
only to Identify Micro- vertical which you want to serve but
also equally important is the identification of segment which
you don’t want to serve.”
• “For any B2B SaaS enterprise, the focus should be on the
Enterprise side of business serving the top end of businesses.”
• “First-hand customer experience for each target segment and
each geography is important, as each group has its own
unique set of challenges”
• “Though the major revenue market will be the US or another
major market the India based team will ensure a consistent
supply of talented yet cost competitive resources”

3. Sateesh Andra (MD, Endiya Partners) & Sreedhar
Peddineni (Co-founder & CTO, GainSight &
HostAnalytics) adressing entrepreneurs dilemma
• “SaaS product customization is not possible in point solution where it is a
focused product with low ticket value. But on the other hand, it is critical
to have the flexibility of configuration and extensibility for enterprise-
focused SaaS products even when it involves some cost.”
• “For SaaS products for enterprises, it is mandatory to have flawless
onboarding process. The associated cost can be mitigated with a library
of common use cases and creating a templatized onboarding process.”
• “It is critical to be perceived and positioned as a premium product.”
• “Every SaaS enterprise is unique and has to identify its own niche target
segments and geographies. One suit fits all cannot be the approach.”
• “Any company targeting US market need to focus on Analyst like Gartner,
IDC, Forrester. The alternate and much cheaper approach can be
targeting marketplaces or product review sites like G2Crowd or
AppExchange. Equally important is encouraging the customer to write
reviews for you.”
• “It is important to have one Cofounder in geography which you may be
targeting not only to know customer requirements but also understand
the competition. This will also help in attracting the right talent.”
• “Selling profitably is important and equally important is how to scale up.”

4. Capillary
Technologies journey
from small startup to
300Mn consumers:
Aneesh Reddy(Co-
founder & CEO,
Capillary
Technologies)
• “Understanding Customer needs and identifying customers who are
willing to pay is important. Before launching our company we surveyed
for almost 6 months to understand customer requirements and in next 6
months launch product and got 100+ customers.”
• “Winning Qualcomm Startup competition was the turning point which
was followed by Angel sharing their interest in investing in our
company.”
• “Right pricing strategy based on customer requirements was important
specifically in 2008 when Saas Pricing was an entirely new concept, it
gave us a clear edge over others.”
• “It is important to have right Product-Market fit. Sales solve everything.
Be careful about how much money you want to raise at any stage.”
• “A day in a month should be spent on meeting VC’s. This comes very
handily when you need funding. For us, funding mainly came from VC’s
whom we have met in the last 6–9 months and have the matching
mindset.”
• “Color of the money is same, go for VC who knows the field. Hire a
board who knows the area. It is great to have VC’s or Board members
who can ask hard questions.”
• “There are two options to grow (1) Go to US (2) Take the multi-product
route. Capillary took the second route.”

5. VC’s view on SaaS Startup: Perspective from Abhishek
Srivastava( Director, Endiya Partners) & Pratik Agarwal (VP,
Accel Partners) startup
• The first important thing that VC’s look for in an enterprise is
“Sense of inevitability i.e the unmet need which business
addresses.”
• The second most important thing is “Teams unique experience
to be a winner in the specific area. The founder should have a
deep understanding and unique philosophy behind the product
and ideally some personal exposure in that area.”
• For the early stage funding, VC sees “founding team experience
in sales and product management. Heavy founder bed with the
founding team having experience is important as it takes the
pressure off a single founder, distribute rights set of work
between the team. The market opportunity is also important,
what is the latent market opportunity. The team should
understand the company and industry landscape, how
alternatively the problem statement can be addressed. Insights
on how VC can get the exit. Angel investing is one more option
in which they can play a role in more very early stage startup.”
• “For Series A funding the Customer success and sales of the
product is important. Typically companies opt for Series A at
$1M ARR for which the pseudo indicators which Vc’s look for
are, some validation of product market fit, some validation of
customer success. some validation of customer acquisition.
Equally important is the industry and the average ticket size a
company having $100 ASP and clocking $600K is having more
weight then company having $10K ASP and reaching $1M
ARR.”
• “For Series B typically VC’s look for “Go to the market strategy
and potential outcome”
• “Typically dilution of stake ranges more on average is nearly
15–25%. It depends upon what follow up investment is
required. Angel investor can continue even after VC funding or
sometimes they do voluntarily exit.”

6. Founders roundup: Chaitanya C, Co-founder & CIO,
Ozonetel, Rohit Chennamaneni, Co-founder, Darwin
box, Ashok Varma, Founder, Report Garden &
Sundeep Reddy, Co-founder & SVP, Gramener
• “Most of the companies started in a Bootstrap mode
and still many are continuing the same model and
growing organically.”
• “It is good to have Cofounders, as multiple founders
can bring complementary skills on the table and can
help to remove biases. A mix of focus on
product/engineering and marketing or sales help
companies balance priorities. It is critical to have
trust between the partners.”
• “As far as geographies are concerned most of the
founders in the panel started with India focus and
further expanded to the US-based on customer
references.”
• “For smaller startups for addressing on ground sales
presence partnership is one good alternative as
having direct sales presence may be costly”
• “Branding and Marketing focus is important for
growing inorganically. Founders especially
highlighted the gap which they had from branding
and logo perspective while they were starting. Focus
on Analyst relations like Gartner and Forrester,
Account-based marketing and Customer-centric
marketing is important. The customer should speak
about you in webinar or testimonials etc.”

7. Kiran Darisi (Senior principal,
Cofounder Freshworks) on
how to build a resilient
system for Customers
• “It is critical to have a resilient system for
startup which can expand as per the need”
• “Focus on performance, scalability and cost,
but equally important is need to balance
based on the SLA’s. Infrastructure cost should
not be more than 10% of your overall spend.”
• “Onboarding system plans should be designed
based on scaling possibility for the
customers.”

8. How to make your SaaS product click: Insights from Sreedhar
Peddineni , Co-founder & CTO, GainSight & HostAnalytics
• “Both the companies “Gainsight and Host analytics “ had two founding partners one sales focus and other product focus or
management. One onsite and other based out of India”
• “Analyst mention by Gartner, IDC and Forrester or from other analyst is important even at a Bootstrap stage to get the
credibility of the product and also to get VC interest.”
• “All companies for any Fiscal period need to constantly monitor Opening ARR, New bookings, Customer churn and Closing
ARR.”
• “Any VC discussion will typically focus on Operations and Product. But what will of primary interest to them will be the Top line
funnel i.e how many leads, within this how many are MQL, How many MQL are converting to SQL, and the conversion from SQL
to SAL(sales accepted leads) and finally how many converting into opportunities and How much is the coverage ratio.”
• “Churn becomes important when you reach a certain level typically thumb rule may be $15 M ARR or 200 customers. If churn is
not addressed then even adding customers will lead to no revenue growth as both addition and churn will be equal. “
• Typically any product development goes through 4 stages:
• (a) Crawl: This is the longest stage with a high degree of uncertainty. The focus is to ideate MVP. Equally important is to identify
ideas which you should not follow. For us, it took nearly it took nearly 12–18 months. We should be able to identify at least 3
customers who are willing to try and buy or at least give a soft commit to buy.
• (b) Walk: This stage primarily focusses on Product market fit and develop a product. Many companies drop at this stage. It took
us nearly 3–4 months to develop product and sell it too early customers. We should also start identifying the next set of
customers.
• © Run: This is the stage where we scaled up. It took us 12 months and we grew from 3 to 16 customers. Multiple Marquee
logos were added, got some angel funding and we started investing in Marketing and branding. Money raised should also be
used to hire more engineers and broadens customer acquisition effort. Multiple product companies stop at this stage.
• (d) Fly: This stage highlights the journey to become a large business or Exit the business by selling.
• “Customer or external Validation is critical, and care must be taken that owners are not getting too much engrossed into an
idea. It is important that at MVP stage we have at least 3 prospective customers, who are willing to pay.”
• “MVP is achieved when you have problem definition and solution statement and 3 enterprise customers who are willing to
commit.”
• “Business context about average selling price is important. There is a difference between $100 Product and $100 K as it will
have a direct impact on multiple organization parameters and structure.”

9. (1) It is critical to understand TAM (Total Addressable Market) for your identified Target Micro
segment. It is equally important to identify the segment which you don’t want to serve.
(2) Customer or external Validation is critical, and care must be taken that founders are not
getting too much engrossed into an idea. It is important to have at least 3 prospective
customers, who are willing to pay at the MVP stage.
(3) Branding and Marketing focus is important for growing inorganically. Focus on Analyst
relations like Gartner and Forrester, Account-based marketing and Customer-centric
marketing is important. The customer testimonials in either of the forms like webinar or
events testimonials bring credibility.
(4) Understanding Customer needs and identifying customers who are willing to pay is
important. Maximum time should be spent in this stage.
(5) It is good to have Cofounders, as multiple founders can bring complementary skills on the
table and can help to remove biases. A mix of focus on product/engineering and marketing or
sales help companies balance priorities. It is critical to have trust between the partners.
(6) Vc’s look for founding teams having a unique experience to be a winner in the specific
area. The founder should have a deep understanding and unique philosophy behind the
product and ideally some personal exposure in that area.
(7) Analyst mention by Gartner, IDC and Forrester or from other analyst firm is important even
at a Bootstrap stage to get the credibility for your product and also to get VC interest. This is
more important for companies focusing on the US market.
(8) It is important to have one Cofounder in geography which you may be targeting not only
to know customer requirements but also understand the competition. This will also help in
attracting the right talent.
(9)The color of the money is the same, go for VC who knows the field. Hire a board who knows
the area. It is great to have VC’s or Board members who can ask hard questions to give right
direction to the company.
(10)For any B2B SaaS enterprise, the focus should be on the Enterprise side of business serving
the top end of businesses.
Top 10 Lessons

10. One more thing