Hossain: SaaS companies under $10M ARR typically see 12-to-18-month payback
Nadim Hossain · 856 SaaS: How Brightfunnel CEO Replaced Himself After Hitting $2m+ ARR, 45 Employees · Nov 27, 2017 · at 14:42
Nadim Hossain, founder and former CEO of BrightFunnel, discusses SaaS unit economics and customer acquisition cost payback benchmarks for early-stage software startups.
0:00 / 0:22exact quote · 22.8s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“You want to be able to acquire in SAS a customer that's going to pay back over 12 months, ideally. At this stage, a little bit earlier you know you know, we're under ten million, I mentioned ARR, so typically, you know, if you're 12 months, you're doing really well, given how fast we're growing, you'd see more that's closer to 18 months, you know, that 12 to 18 month payback.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Nadim Hossain
Hossain: Board members who refuse to consider exits should be fired
“Any board member that tells you they won't consider an exit is should be fired, right? Your job as a board member is to consider the value of the company. I'm representing every shareholder at this point, not just myself or the investors and employees. So you …”
Hossain: Founders who scale all the way are a rare breed
“The ones that go all the way and succeed, you know, you can pick your favorites, maybe Mark Benioff, very, very rare breed. It takes certainly a lot of skill and sort of a unique talent. So I think it is, you do need some self-awareness to know when someone el…”
Hossain: Startup founders should assume their company will be worth nothing
“Now, as a startup, as a founder, you should think of it as it's probably going to be worth nothing, right? That's the way to think about really any founder. You shouldn't be thinking about the outcome.”
Hossain: Early venture rounds cause ~30% dilution via investors and option pools
“In every round, you know, think of it as a 30% dilution event because your investor is you know, they want to own a certain percent of their company. That's usually about, you know, again, people give ranges of the series A level about they want to own 20% aft…”
Hossain: Tech founders should use domain expertise to trade public equities
“If you're building an expertise in a domain, in my case, it's SAS and sort of generally enterprise software, you probably know more about it than the vast majority of people. So while you shouldn't randomly be day trading, you probably have good instincts if y…”
Hossain: Founder-CEO transitions typically occur 6-7 years in before an IPO
“You look at Crunchbase you know, you see typically the transitions happen six to seven years in at least the ones you hear about the ones that, you know, the company goes out of business, obviously, you transition into oblivion but typically it is a little bit…”