small, medium-sized businesses

also referred to as: small, medium businesses · smb · smbs

36 statements across 34 episodes · 9 bullish · 8 bearish · 31 people on the record · first statement Apr 3, 2016 by Michael Perry · across every show →

Everything said about small, medium-sized businesses, oldest first

Apr 3, 2016 negative
Opinion
VCs avoid funding SMB tech because it is a tough market
“And I think a common thing, an issue that people who build within the small business sector face is no one wants to invest in technology for SMB because it's such a tough nut to crack.”
Michael Perry Apr 3, 2016 ▶ 4:26 LTV, CAC, ARPU Numbers from SaaS CEO Michael Perry of Kitcrm.com EP 222
Aug 28, 2016 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Massimo Chieruzzi predicts all future Facebook ad growth will come from SMBs
“All the growth For Facebook, in the next few months will become, in the next years will be coming from small, medium businesses, because the enterprise are already there.”
Massimo Chieruzzi Aug 28, 2016 ▶ 10:11 EP 400: AdEspresso Hits $20M Valuation, 4000 Customers, $400k MRR with CEO Massimo Chieruzzi
Aug 31, 2016 bearish
Insight
Latka: 90% of SMBs Fail in Two Years, Driving High SaaS Churn
“Nine out of 10 small businesses fail in the first two years, so it makes churn extremely, extremely difficult in the SMB space, which is why usually typically people decide to move up market into mid-market or enterprise space.”
Nathan Latka Aug 31, 2016 ▶ 9:14 EP 403: $650k Raised, Finland SaaS Copmany, 600 Customers with PromoRepublic.com
Sep 19, 2016 bearish
Opinion
Investors avoid small business technology because it is difficult to crack
“I think a common thing, an issue that people who build within the small business sector face is no one wants to invest in technology for SMB because it's such a tough nut to crack.”
Michael Perry Sep 19, 2016 ▶ 3:14 KitCRM, $38K MRR, 2000 Customers
Oct 1, 2016
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pearce: LiquidPlanner has not achieved net negative revenue churn
“Not yet. You know, we're still selling to the SMB and there's a lot of froth in the SMB market.”
Liz Pearce Oct 1, 2016 ▶ 10:04 EP 434: Top SaaS Planning Tool Hits $600k in MRR, 1800 Customers, $13M Raised, Growing Fast With CEO Liz Pearce
Nov 7, 2016
Insight
Chaudhry: AI content recommendation fails for SMBs due to insufficient data
“The reason why this won't work for SMBs too much is because you need large volumes of data for data science to be very effective. Right. Like if you only have a hundred customers, then you really can't customize too much for them. You need millions of customer…”
Karan Chaudhry Nov 7, 2016 ▶ 8:37 EP 471: He Just Exited, Now Landds $500k Customer for New Content AI Business ComnPlus with CEO Karan Chaudhry
Nov 24, 2016 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Robinson: Franchise businesses have sub-5% 5-year attrition versus 60% for regular SMBs
“These companies go out of business, 60% every five years. However in the franchise industry, that five year attrition rate is sub five percent. So they don't go out of business. They just resell the location.”
Adam Robinson Nov 24, 2016 ▶ 10:08 EP 488: Hireology $26M Raised, $1.2M MRR, Helping 4000 Customers Hire More Effectively with Hireology CEO Adam Robinson
Aug 11, 2017
Disclosure
Logz.io enterprise pricing starts at $50K, scaling to hundreds of thousands.
“One of them is the SMB. Usually would pay about 10 K, 10 to 15 K a year for the product. And on top of it, we have what we call SME, small, medium enterprise would usually pay 50 K per year minimum, and then would go to a few hundred K's for the high end enter…”
Tomer Levy Aug 11, 2017 ▶ 3:31 748: How to Use Open Source Project As Lead Gen from $3m+ ARR Founder
Dec 16, 2017 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bird: Bizible's LTV-to-CAC Ratio Is Uniform Across Segments
“The CAC is lower in SMB, but then also, you know, retention is also lower. And so the LTV to CAC is actually about the same across all segments.”
Aaron Bird Dec 16, 2017 ▶ 13:13 875 SaaS: Bizable Passes $1m MRR in Attribution Wars
Feb 23, 2018 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Courtot: Qualys retains 95% of enterprise clients and 85% of SMBs
“We have very good retention rates and much more on the, of course, the enterprise is more sticky than the SMB, but we're on the 95% on the enterprise and about in the 85% on the on the SMB.”
Philippe Courtot Feb 23, 2018 ▶ 13:59 944 Why He IPO'd CyberSecurity Company and How He Did $230m in 2017 Revenue
Apr 5, 2018 negative
Opinion
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.”
David Barrett Apr 5, 2018 ▶ 11:43 985 How Expensify Hit $60m+ Magic on Bottom Up Business Model
May 4, 2018
Disclosure
Zoom recovers its paid SMB customer acquisition costs within one quarter
“Online S&P is very, very fast. Within the, within one quarter, you already get the money back.”
Eric Yuan May 4, 2018 ▶ 14:22 1014 Zoom CEO on Killing His Old WebEx Baby With $150m+ in ARR
Jul 23, 2018 negative
Insight
Reale: Workflow automation software does not work well for SMBs
“Looking at the kind of SMB or even smaller businesses realize that doesn't really work for this genre of product.”
Brian Reale Jul 23, 2018 ▶ 12:13 1094 How he bought 15 people off cap table, hit $9m in ARR in workflow space
Sep 28, 2018 neutral
Insight
Decugis: Getting Above 75% Annual Retention on SMBs Is Really Hard
“Getting, you know, above 75% retention yearly on SMB is is really hard. Some companies manage us to do this and have a very healthy model, but if you want to do, you know, negative churn and upsells and so on, it's probably more with, you know, larger companie…”
Guillaume Decugis Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 16:57 1161 How 4m Freemium Users Power Enterprise Content Offering at Scoop.it
Sep 28, 2018 negative
Disclosure
Decugis: Scoop.it Monthly Churn Exceeds 5% on SMB Segment
“So on the SMB part, we're north of that. Yeah.”
Guillaume Decugis Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 17:48 1161 How 4m Freemium Users Power Enterprise Content Offering at Scoop.it
Sep 30, 2018 neutral
Insight
Lamson: JazzHR's biggest challenge is educating SMBs out of spreadsheets
“Our biggest challenge is that is education is categorical education is helping SMBs understand that there is a better and highly affordable solution out there. Then the word document and spreadsheet hell they're stuck in now.”
Pete Lamson Sep 30, 2018 ▶ 15:25 1163 How Jazz HR Used $6m in New Funds to Add $1m ARR in 3 Months
Oct 20, 2018 neutral
Insight
Ginzberg: SMB video tools must sacrifice brand customization for simplicity
“When you target SMBs, you need to provide them with a tool that is that simple so that they can actually use it. Which means by that simple means that your ability to build something which is literally on your brand is close to zero. So it's mostly based on te…”
Dror Ginzberg Oct 20, 2018 ▶ 14:24 1183 Why 200 Enterprise Clients Pay Him $10m+ to Scale Video Production
Nov 26, 2018 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
King: Vendasta reaches over 100,000 SMBs monthly through 13,000 reseller salespeople
“Yeah, and it's bigger companies, so I would say, like, we have about 13,000 salespeople in those companies that are using the product to sell to their SMBs, and we're selling to just over a 100,000 SMBs on a monthly basis every month.”
Brendan King Nov 26, 2018 ▶ 10:09 1220 How He Shields Himself from SMB Churn with 1200 Resellers, $2.3m/mo in Revenue
Jan 5, 2019 neutral
Insight
Latka: Uncontrollable SMB closures usually force at least 2% monthly churn
“Small businesses go out of business, right? Which you have no control over, which usually puts churn at least two percent per month.”
Nathan Latka Jan 5, 2019 ▶ 14:35 1260 Whitelabel SMB Tools Platform Raising $1m on $4m Pre with $1.5m in ARR
Jun 3, 2019
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mathrubootham: Freshworks Gets 65% of Revenue from SMBs, 35% from Enterprises
“So we have 65% of our revenue from SMB customers and 35% from what we call mid-market or large enterprise customers.”
Girish Mathrubootham Jun 3, 2019 ▶ 8:16 1409 $1.5B Freshworks To IPO: Growing 40% YoY, Passes $100M in ARR, $250M Raised, 150,000 Companies Using
Jun 5, 2019 negative
Insight
Mack: SMB SaaS is tough; customers churn within 3 to 12 months
“SMB is kind of a tough space. People, Start a new platform. You know, try to handle it for three months or six months or a year and then leave.”
Chris Mack Jun 5, 2019 ▶ 3:04 1411 This Tool is Flat, Bootstrapped, Why Won't Founder Get The Hell out and Sell?
Jul 31, 2019
Insight
Seat-Based Pricing Alone Cannot Drive SMB SaaS Expansion Revenue
“I don't think you can do it on pure seats. I think that was I think that's basically just a challenge of the SMB target. I think you need to have add-ons.”
Ben Congleton Jul 31, 2019 ▶ 17:29 1467 Olark Founded 2007, $14.4M+ in ARR, So Why Did New Live Chat Players Get All The Love?
Jul 31, 2019 negative
Insight
Usage-Based Pricing Creates Unpredictable Software Costs for SMB Customers
“I think if you look at sort of some of the competitors pricing where people are charging like for usage based pricing, I mean, it's pretty interesting, but as a SMB, it makes your pricing like super unpredictable.”
Ben Congleton Jul 31, 2019 ▶ 17:42 1467 Olark Founded 2007, $14.4M+ in ARR, So Why Did New Live Chat Players Get All The Love?
Sep 15, 2019
Disclosure
Guccione: 85% of Keeper Security's Business Is SMB
“85% of our business is to SMB.”
Darren Guccione Sep 15, 2019 ▶ 13:57 1513 KeeperSecurity is Profitable, Churning 8-10% of Revenue Annually
Dec 26, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Outbound sales for $50K+ enterprise deals yield 5 to 20 monthly demos
“We usually, if they're just doing outbound, if they're selling something over, like, 50 grand, they're looking at five to 20 demos a month. If they're a little bit lower price point where they're selling, like, SMBs, like, we can get, like, 120 demos a month.”
Nick Kozmin Dec 26, 2019 ▶ 5:31 1615 Secrets to Cold Traffic to Demo to Sales Funnel with $1.8m ARR SalesProcess CEO
Sep 3, 2020
Insight
Kellogg: Small businesses prefer buying services over pure software
“What we're selling to the SMB feels like services because an SMB wants to buy services. But on the back end, we're using technology to increase scale and profitability.”
JB Kellogg Sep 3, 2020 ▶ 4:31 Madwire Hits 20k Customers, $120m Revenue, and Profitable Serving SMB's. IPO next?
Oct 24, 2020
Insight
Fondavilla: SMB SaaS must unlock new revenue channels without moving upmarket
“So in the end with this small business segment, there's a limit on the, how much money you can charge them. No, they have limited resources. So, and we don't want to change the game. We don't want to go up in the market. So at some point you need to find new r…”
Javi Fondavilla Oct 24, 2020 ▶ 11:03 Holded Grows 100% YoY to $4m ARR, Last Round Valuation $22 Million
Dec 18, 2020
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Greenberg: Algopix has roughly 5,000 SMB customers while pivoting upmarket
“We have probably about 5000 SMBs that we're walking away from that business model.”
Ori Greenberg Dec 18, 2020 ▶ 4:22 AlgoPix Hits $2.4m Revenue Helping CPG Brands Monitor Competitors Pricing
May 17, 2021 positive
Disclosure
Bean: Divvy targets Main Street SMBs rather than just VC-backed companies
“Luckies of the world, but just SMBs, you know, we kind of have two audiences. I say like one to 50 and 50 to 500, slightly different use cases for the most part, but SMBs in general, that that's, we're going after the mom and pops of America, Main Street Ameri…”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 4:10 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Jun 9, 2021
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Mathrubootham: Freshworks generates 65% of revenue from SMBs and 35% from enterprise
“So we have 65% of our revenue from SMB customers and 35% from what we call mid-market or large enterprise customers.”
Girish Mathrubootham Jun 9, 2021 ▶ 6:54 Prediction: Freshbworks IPO Coming Next Month? Founders Thinking in 2018
Oct 8, 2021
Disclosure
Consumer Fusion charges SMBs an average of $299 monthly per location
“But on average, I would say our price point is like 299 dollars a month per location for SMBs.”
Brynn Gibbs Oct 8, 2021 ▶ 1:57 How She Bootstrapped to $4m in ARR Helping You Fight Negative Reviews
Oct 16, 2021
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rupify disbursed $7.5M in monthly loans to roughly 15,000 SMBs
“That must be around 15 or a thousand.”
Anubhav Jain Oct 16, 2021 ▶ 13:01 India Fintech + SaaS Zero to $60k MRR in 3 Months Helping SMB's Fund Inventory
Oct 19, 2021
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Veem generates approximately $20 in monthly average revenue per SMB customer
“It's SMBs. You're making, yeah, like, 20 bucks a month is a good you know good way to characterize it.”
Marwan Forzley Oct 19, 2021 ▶ 15:05 Will Veem's 300,000 SMB Customers Process Over $5b in 2021? 3 Products Driving Growth.
Apr 28, 2022 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Abbott: 90 achieves sub-1% annualized churn when fully adopted
“If you use our system and you cascade it all the way down so everybody in your company is using our tools, including the feedback tool, our churn rate, annualized, is less than one percent.”
Mark Abbott Apr 28, 2022 ▶ 8:09 He Used Community to Hit $7m Revenue, VC's chased him
Jun 18, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Lemlist serves 50,000 customers and refuses to move upmarket to enterprise
“All of this with 50,000 customers worldwide, focusing on SMBs. We're not going up markets, and we're focusing on bringing as much value as possible as small businesses.”
Kevin Moenne-Loccoz Jun 18, 2024 ▶ 1:50 Lemlist Product Genius Shares Strategy, $23,000,000 in Sales (ARR), No Outside Funding
Jun 18, 2025 bullish
Insight
D'Souza: Cold outreach remains underutilized because SMBs find setup too complex
“Cold outreach itself, though we think it's a very saturated space, it's still pretty new out there. A lot of businesses still don't use cold outreach because Using Google ads, using Facebook ads is pretty simple for SMB. Cold outreach still feels like rocket s…”
Alan D'Souza Jun 18, 2025 ▶ 7:11 How I Built It: $6M/Year Email AI Platform (Bootstrapped)
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