So many folks are doing well today, fueled by AI spend and in some cases, the overall health of the consumer economy, Microsoft, Cloudflare, GitLab (and GitHub for that matter), CrowdStrike (before that small little outage), Wiz, Plantir and so many others are in The Best of Times.
But for many others, it’s often Year 3 of a “downturn”, or at the very least, Year 3 of Tougher Times. Of growth that has slowed not just briefly, but over a very extended period.
So what do you do? We’ve gone through a long list of advice in tougher times at SaaStr, some great advice:
- Use Micromilestones to get the team though (grow something at a higher rate, even if it’s not MRR)
- Drive up NPS and Retention (which you can control)
- Get out and visit your prospects and customers in person (too many do the opposite in tougher times)
But now we’re seeing many startups and scale-ups go through not just a rough patch, but a long extended period of tough growth.
And watching dozens of them, it’s clear to me what matters most in an extended tough period:
Bringing new, strong, energized DNA onto the team. Go hire one great VP, now. Or even a super strong IC. They will help pull the team out of … its malaise.
Because a malaise does set in when a tough quarter becomes … a tough year. Or even two. The sales team starts to see sales as almost impossible. Marketing starts to focus on just a small number of free activities, like a new podcast. And customer success stops caring as much when customers … don’t succeed.
It just happens when a rough patch becomes a rough few years. Malaise. Some leave, but those that stay often become Debbie Downers. Even worse, they often tell everyone why things don’t work. Why things shouldn’t be tried. Why they don’t work anymore. And they’re hard to argue with. They’ve been around a while.
So the only thing I’ve really seen work is bringing in new DNA. Imagine you’re at $20m ARR growing 30%, but at $10m ARR you were growing 80%. That’s going to seem brutal to the existing team. But bring in a VP of Sales or Marketing at somewhere that wasn’t growing at all? They may see it as almost easy. Almost at least 🙂
Bring in someone smart, with energy, with leadership skills from somewhere where it was all even harder. They’ll come in, often level things up very quickly. And the rest of the team will start to respond.
You Just Gotta Push Through the Tough Times. It Always Pays Off.
(Image from here)
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Jason Lemkin, Khareem Sudlow
