Christoph Janz

Everything Christoph Janz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.

SAASTR Insight

20-tab startup financial models are always poorly designed

“As a rule of thumb, I have never seen in my life an Excel plan or a Google Sheets plan that had dozens or maybe 20 pages or tabs where it actually made sense. None. I've seen a lot of these, but I think they are all just really poorly done. If anybody wants to…”

Christoph Janz Sep 25, 2024 ▶ 10:26 5 Metrics that Matter When Raising Your SaaS Series A and Series B with Christoph Janz of Point 9

SAASTR Insight

A 10-20 person sales team that never fires anyone indicates dysfunction

“If an investor sees a company with 10 or 20 salespeople and they've never let go a salesperson, that almost tells you something Tells you that something isn't working because it's unheard of, that every single salesperson works out.”

Christoph Janz Sep 25, 2024 ▶ 25:31 5 Metrics that Matter When Raising Your SaaS Series A and Series B with Christoph Janz of Point 9

SAASTR Insight

Cutting sales spend with fast CAC payback can actually reduce runway

“So if you're in that situation and you need more runway, it's probably a big mistake to cut your sales and marketing costs because the payback is so quick that it might actually decrease your runway if you don't spend on sales and marketing.”

Christoph Janz Oct 13, 2022 ▶ 29:17 Growth vs. Efficiency: How to Weatherproof Your SaaS Startup for Tougher Times | Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Efficient startups with high burn should increase sales spend and cut elsewhere

“If you have an efficient sales and marketing engine, try to spend more on it, not less, and try to save money in other places.”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 22:59 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Startups unable to become default alive should target becoming default investable

“If you can't become default alive, then try to become default investable”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 27:20 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Cutting bottom 5-10% of staff costs almost no productivity

“Every company has five to 10% or maybe even more of people on their team who are just not performing as well as the rest. There is just no company where everybody is at the same level. So just consider letting go, like, the bottom five to 10%. In the sales tea…”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 30:33 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Fire any VP who isn't amazing after a few months

“Move on from any VP that isn't amazing. I think this advice has been given and repeated many times over, but it's doesn't make it wrong. If you've hired a VP, say it's marketing or any other function, and if he or she isn't absolutely awesome after a couple of…”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 31:09 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Prediction Not checkable as stated

Janz: VC markets may not see 2021-level valuations for a decade

“My guess is that we will not go back maybe never, or maybe not for 10 years to what we've seen in 2020 and 20 21, where there was a lot of craziness, like every round being done in just a couple of days at insane valuations.”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 38:10 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Half of 2023 Seed-Stage SaaS Startups Raised Pre-Revenue

“At the seed stage, as you can see here, approximately half of them were pre-revenue, while the other half had some ARR, anything between just a couple of 100,000 dollars Up to about a million or even 1.5 million.”

Christoph Janz Sep 27, 2023 ▶ 5:49 What it Takes to Raise Capital with Christoph Janz of Point Nine

SAASTR Opinion

Incumbent SaaS Giants Are Adopting AI Rapidly, Avoiding Dinosaur Fate

“The learning is that the bigger SaaS companies are pretty fast to embrace AI, so it's not like they are the dinosaurs from the on-premise world that didn't manage to move to the cloud. If you look at what Intercom, HubSpot, Notion, Zendesk, and others are doin…”

Christoph Janz Sep 27, 2023 ▶ 21:43 What it Takes to Raise Capital with Christoph Janz of Point Nine

SAASTR Insight

Strict 'default alive' goals can cause startups to underinvest and stagnate

“If you're planning to be default alive, which is a great goal, it might, depending on your situation, lead you to under-invest in, in product and R&D, sales and marketing. So the consequence of that might be that you that you sort of, you don't fail quickly, b…”

Christoph Janz Oct 13, 2022 ▶ 10:59 Growth vs. Efficiency: How to Weatherproof Your SaaS Startup for Tougher Times | Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Net new ARR reveals growth issues earlier than total ARR

“If you look at the net new AR, however, the difference becomes much more visible. It's a really, really simple math, but nevertheless, I think some people or maybe many people or two people, too many people don't really focus on looking at the net new ARR only…”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 10:56 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Good burn multiple for $1M-$25M ARR SaaS is 1.5 to 2

“As a general rule of thumb, for SaaS companies, around a million to twenty-five million in an ARR, which I'm assuming is probably the like, the range most people in the audience here are in one to five 1.5 to two is, is good. One to 1.5 or even lower is, is gr…”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 18:10 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

SAASTR Insight

Janz: The Rule of 40 only works for SaaS over $10M ARR

“The problem is that this only really works if you're at I know, 10, fifteen million or so in, in ARR. At a much earlier stage, you will almost always have a not so good rule of 40 because the investments in product and engineering are just like so high that t…”

Christoph Janz Jun 29, 2022 ▶ 50:39 Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times | Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

20VC Insight

Janz: Founder quality matters more than market size at seed stage

“I think if you have a great team in a really, really bad market, there is a good chance that they will still turn it into like some decent level of success, or maybe they can pivot into a better market. So I think the team is the more important factor of the t…”

Christoph Janz Nov 24, 2021 ▶ 12:32 20VC: The Contentful Memo: Point Nine's Christoph Janz on The Cold Email That Led to a Unicorn Investment, How To Approach Market Sizing and Timing & The Pros and Cons of Pre-Emptive Rounds, When To Do Them vs When Not To?

20VC Disclosure

Christoph Janz: Point Nine's best investments were in unfamiliar sectors

“Some of the best investments that we've made at .9 or that I personally made as an angel investor were probably in spaces where I didn't know too much about it.”

Christoph Janz Nov 24, 2021 ▶ 14:52 20VC: The Contentful Memo: Point Nine's Christoph Janz on The Cold Email That Led to a Unicorn Investment, How To Approach Market Sizing and Timing & The Pros and Cons of Pre-Emptive Rounds, When To Do Them vs When Not To?

20VC Assertion Supported

European enterprise software investors universally passed on Zendesk's early rounds

“Everybody in Europe, Who knew anything about enterprise software looked at Zendesk and passed because there were plenty of reasons why this would never work.”

Christoph Janz Nov 24, 2021 ▶ 15:04 20VC: The Contentful Memo: Point Nine's Christoph Janz on The Cold Email That Led to a Unicorn Investment, How To Approach Market Sizing and Timing & The Pros and Cons of Pre-Emptive Rounds, When To Do Them vs When Not To?

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Venture round definitions have shifted upward by an entire stage

“Like what used to be called a seed is now a pre-seed, what used to be called a series A is now a seed, what used to be called a series B is now a series A, and what used to be called A series C is now a series B. So you can almost shift the columns one step if…”

Christoph Janz Feb 4, 2021 ▶ 26:58 How To Raise Your Next Round: What Does it Take to Really Raise Capital | Point Nine Capital

SAASTR Assertion Not checkable as stated

Janz: Series A investors now expect over $1M ARR from large-seed startups

“If you've raised a million dollar in pre-seed, And five million dollar in, in seed as an example, then Series A investors will usually look for more than the million dollars in ARR, which previously we considered to be a rule of thumb. So as we saw when we loo…”

Christoph Janz Feb 4, 2021 ▶ 27:58 How To Raise Your Next Round: What Does it Take to Really Raise Capital | Point Nine Capital

SAASTR Insight

Janz: The top 20% of SaaS startups defy standard funding benchmarks

“The best or the hottest, if you will, 10 to 20% of the companies, they kind of defy all rules. So we've seen companies Raising at really very, very remarkable terms in the last in the last years, but even, even more so, or especially in the last 12 months. if…”

Christoph Janz Feb 4, 2021 ▶ 28:43 How To Raise Your Next Round: What Does it Take to Really Raise Capital | Point Nine Capital

SAASTR Insight

Janz: Preemptive VC Discussions Benefit Investors, Not Founders

“Investors will often try to pull you into preemptive fundraising discussions. I think that's mostly good for them, not necessarily good for the founders, and I think in almost all cases you are better off if you decide when you go out fundraising, and then you…”

Christoph Janz Feb 4, 2021 ▶ 31:07 How To Raise Your Next Round: What Does it Take to Really Raise Capital | Point Nine Capital

SAASTR Insight

SaaS early-stage financial projections should cover roughly two years

“I think projections should usually be for around two years. I think one year is usually not enough because you raise a certain amount that should give you runway for 18 months or two years, and so it's good to have a budget for that period.”

Christoph Janz Sep 25, 2024 ▶ 5:12 5 Metrics that Matter When Raising Your SaaS Series A and Series B with Christoph Janz of Point 9

SAASTR Insight

SaaS startups need 2x to 3x YoY growth for Series A interest

“As a rough rule of thumb, a company that has a million or a couple of million in ERR, I think needs to grow at two or three X to really get a lot of investor interest. If you are at five to ten million ERR, I think it's usually still two X year over year growt…”

Christoph Janz Sep 25, 2024 ▶ 12:20 5 Metrics that Matter When Raising Your SaaS Series A and Series B with Christoph Janz of Point 9

SAASTR Insight

Investors demand a clear path to at least 100% net dollar retention

“A hundred percent NDR is something that investors really care for. Doesn't mean that you necessarily have to be there at the Series A, but I think there needs to be some path of getting there because people are really afraid of investing in businesses that kee…”

Christoph Janz Sep 25, 2024 ▶ 12:46 5 Metrics that Matter When Raising Your SaaS Series A and Series B with Christoph Janz of Point 9

Show 24statements(71 left)

The other half of the tape: Christoph Janz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 50 times in 20 episodes across the shows. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Jason Lemkin 18Mikkel Svane 11Nico Wittenborn 5Joe Thomas 5Harry Stebbings 5Robert Lacher 2Devdutt Yellurkar 2Rob Lacher 1

Statements about Christoph Janz, by other people (2)

SAASTR Assertion Partly supported

Lemkin: Top VCs read every cold email and decide within a week

“Every single one of them said they read every single cold email they get, and every single one of them invests in one week.”

Jason Lemkin Nov 17, 2021 ▶ 45:55 The Highs and Lows of Fundraising from Founders That Have Raised $1B w/ Calendly, Coda, LaunchDarkly

20VC Opinion

Tak Lo: Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital is a top must-read VC blogger

“Chris, Christopher Jans from .9 Capital out in Berlin, I think. Awesome, really great early stage founder, understands the B to B space, but just a really good, again, very insightful investor. Those are the four that I read a lot.”

Tak Lo May 18, 2015 ▶ 8:25 20 VC 037: How To Get a Job at a Startup, Startup Lessons and Brad Feld's 'Open Office Hours' with Tak Lo, Director @ Techstars

Every mention by year

One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Christoph's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.

Show	Role there	Eps	Statements	Record
SAASTRLEDGER	Co-Founder & Partner, Point Nine	2 +3	78	100% 3/3	full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast →
20VCLEDGER	Co-Founder & Partner, Point Nine	1	17	67% 2/3	full record on 20VC →