Mid Market
topic on 11 shows · 22 statements across 22 episodes · said 1 times in 1 episodes since 2026
Sourcery 1 
In Depth 
Startups For the Rest of Us 
Lenny's Podcast 
the Neon Show 
the Official SaaStr Podcast 
A Product Market Fit Show 
Capital Allocators 
Top Founders 
the a16z Podcast 
20VC
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Sourcery 1
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
22 statements about Mid Market, every show
McCall: Samsara focused on mid-market for lower social proof barriers
“And so for us at that point in time, the mid market was the place to go for a couple of reasons. Number one it didn't require as much social proof, right? It was more about, Hey, are you satisfying my need for telematics? Do you fit the requirement? And then, …”
Grosser: Segmenting solely by company size misses key sales differentiators
“A very, very typical company segmentation is small, medium, large. That's a rational way to do things. Small, you often have a single decision maker. Medium, you know, a small team, and large, it's complex, it's a committee, etc. So the buying process does cha…”
Enterprise product flexibility creates user experience weaknesses in the mid-market
“In enterprise, you need a high, you want lots of capabilities and lots of flexibility. Lots of capabilities and lots of flexibility could become a complex user experience in, in mid-market. So what's your strength in enterprise could become your weakness in th…”
Abel: The mid-market does not exist in B2B sales
“So I say the mid-market doesn't exist, because what is a mid-market hire? It's either low end enterprise or upper end SMB. And if you bleed those two games, you're going to lose. They're so distinctly different.”
Degnan: Mid-market sales failures are inconsequential compared to burning Fortune 100 prospects
“You can fail, like, you can fail in the mid-market a bunch, and then not be super consequential. If you fail in the, you know, Fortune 100, Good luck getting another, another chance.”
Mid-market PE uses two turns less leverage with more exit paths
“They use a little bit less leverage, maybe two turns less on average. They have more exit opportunities. They can potentially buy cheaper depending on what their skill set is.”
Tunguz: AI agent startups struggle in mid-market compared to PLG and enterprise
“We see most AI agentic software companies, people who are selling software that replaces labor, they either sell at the bottom, PLG, bottoms up, or they sell at the very top. Mid-market is much harder.”
Narang: Toast has higher market penetration in mid-market than SMB
“In fact, we have more market penetration within mid-market than we even do in SMB today.”
Enterprise Expansion Yields Slower Returns on Speed Than SMB
“You need some capital to go into the enterprise and you won't get that immediate love. You won't. It takes time. It doesn't have the same return on speed as the SMB or mid market will have.”
Lemkin: Launch a Second Product Before Hitting 100 Enterprise SaaS Customers
“In enterprise, it's often around a hundred customers in a group. In mid-market, it's a thousand. And in SMB, you're lucky to get to 10,000 customers without hitting significant headwinds, ok? So my rough, way too rough rules are enterprise, mid-market, SMB. Be…”
Miller: Mid-market SaaS focus prevents single enterprise clients from hijacking product roadmaps
“By playing in the mid market, it means our revenue is distributed more evenly across our entire install base, which means that there's no single customer who can hold us hostage really. But what that does is, you know, with great power comes great responsibili…”
Kennedy: Software's exact dollar price rarely affects mid-market purchasing decisions
“I'm firmly convinced that the actual dollar value has very little to do with the buying decision, definitely in mid-market.”
Srugo: Mid-market SaaS is a sweet spot between enterprise and SMB
“Like people oftentimes don't like selling enterprise because it's too slow. It's too chunky. And SMBs oftentimes don't really have the sort of, you know, structure and size and capital to be meaningful customers. So this mid-market tends to be a sweet spot for…”
Khajuria: Copycat PE funds are more prevalent in the mid-market
“I will say, however, that in the mid market, I think you ought to be more careful, because there are a lot of copycat kind of funds, which do exist in the mid market that you do find at the higher end, but I think is perhaps more prevalent in the mid market.”
Halligan: The mid-market software segment remains massive and underserved
“There's a huge, huge market in the M and the M think of it like 10 employees to 2000 employees. They have money. They have pain. The small business products don't solve it. The enterprise companies don't solve. It's too expensive, too hard to put in.”
Bijapur: Modern SaaS playbooks require starting mid-market before moving upmarket
“And if you look at the SaaS playbook that we see these days, you always start mid-market now and then move much more enterprise as you grow.”
Ferrara: Mid-market SaaS yields 80-90% gross and 90-120% net revenue retention
“If you're selling into the mid-market with ACVs of something like 12 K or up to 50 K per year, you can expect 80 to 90% gross revenue retention, and net revenue retention, we typically see something in the 90 to, in best cases, a 120%.”
Selling heavy enterprise software to mid-market buyers creates a product-market mismatch
“When you're doing an enterprise software sale, trying to sell in the mid market, it's just mismatched with what the mid market buyer wants.”
Shen: Mid-market SaaS should target 80-90% gross and 90-120% net retention
“If you're selling to the mid-market, let's say, you've got average deal sizes that are, let's say, 12 to 50 K a year, you're really targeting an 80 to 90% gross retention, and a 90 to a 120% net retention.”
David Barrett says enterprise software sucks compared to mid-market opportunities
“Enterprise sucks, man. It's just like, it's super slow sales cycles. The margins are terrible. It's super competitive. It's whatever. The real opportunity is mid-market and below.”
The mid-market is the last white space in HR and payroll software
“Well, I think it's probably the last remaining white space left in the HR payroll benefit space.”