成功的SaaS企业具备哪些要素，看看数据怎么说创立一个上十亿美元的SaaS企业软件公司需要多少本钱？这个问题很复杂，但也相当吸引人，在最近一个叫 “SaaS大冒险”（The SaaS Adventure）的贴子里，我们给出了回答。
概括来说：我们观察到，在大多数SaaS公司的成功营销过程当中，都有七个关键阶段。大部分的阶段都围绕着一个咒语：“三倍、三倍、两倍、两倍、两倍”，简称T2D3，指的是公司的年营收增长。
我们将这个历程称为“SaaS大冒险”，这个词很直白地揭示了我们眼中，风险投资人的作用：在SaaS公司攀登10亿美元巅峰的旅途当中，充当旅游向导，提供经验，使之达到甚至超越10亿美元目标。
我们“SaaS大冒险”的贴子，以及T2D3的概念，一经发布就引起了强烈反响。同时，我们也吸引了发明“独角兽”这个概念的风投家Aileen Lee的注意，上个月她刚更新了一批新的课程。所有这一切都促使我们对SaaS公司进行更加深入的分析。
我们的最新分析，在某种程度上还是比较有特色的，给大家提供了一份豪华便当，为大家描绘了SaaS成功攀岩路径图，我们所做的一切，就是希望能够帮助新企业找出自己的成功路径图。
我们可以把这个路径图看成一幅探险地图，登山者们更喜欢叫它“β图”。它能给那些尝试向上攀爬的新公司一些宝贵建议。并且，我们计划通过定期分析数据来更新数据组。
所以我们在这里推荐下SaaS成就数据库（SaaS Success Database ），这是66家SaaS界领军公司的集合，上市非上市的都有。它们无不是在6月30日之前，或通过公开市场，或通过私人并购，以5亿美元以上的身价潇洒退场。其中也不乏估值上达甚至超过10亿美元的私人公司。正是这些公司，定义了SaaS这个行业。
SaaS成就数据库对SaaS的发展史进行了追溯，一直追溯到早期，那个时候SaaS还不叫SaaS，而是叫做应用服务提供商，简称ASP。当时其中有8家公司幸运地得到了Battery的投资。
我们列表当中的SaaS公司，有20%成立于1997年之前，但是大多数还是成立于那之后到2008年金融危机爆发之前的这段时间。当中有36.3%成立于1998-2002年，30.3%成立于2003-2007年。
那些在2008年或之后成立的SaaS公司，比如说App性能管理提供商AppDynamics、移动医疗公司Castlight Health、SaaS服务提供商Domo、社交媒体工具Hootsuite、 App性能管理服务商New Relic、企业内部沟通协作平台Slack、社交媒体管理平台Sprinklr以及企业社交网站Yammer，尽管遭遇了经济困难时期，却能在众多同类公司当中遥遥领先。
这也强调了一点，市场环境有时候并不是成败与否的决定性因素，团队和产品对市场的匹配适应度，才是成功的关键所在。
未来我们还会继续发帖，帮大家解决成功之路上每个关键阶段会遇到的各种难题，我们还会和数据库里的公司CEO对话，这些CEO早已规划出了自己的成功路线图。我们目前已经和其中两位高管进行了视频对话，他们分别是Marketo的Phil Fernandez，以及AppDynamics的Jyoti Bansal。
在谁能够成功创立公司这点上，我们分析发现，成功公司通常由团队创立。
在我们的数据库当中，两位创始人的搭档是最普遍的，占到总数的34.9%，有33.3%的公司由三个或更多的人创立，甚至有的公司创始人人数达到7人之多。
令人惊奇的是，这些创始团队通常是陌生人，有60%的创始人在创立公司之前，压根没有合作过。整个名单当中只有31.8%的SaaS公司，是一人独挑大梁创立的。
除了创始人数，我们还调查了这些CEO的背景，比如说我们问了这样一个问题，有多少人是第一次当CEO？答案是超过67%。尽管SaaS公司CEO都是成年人，但大多数还真的是第一次当上CEO。
有大约60%的创始CEO是30多岁创立的公司，13.8%是在40多岁，还有6.2%是在50多岁才创立的公司。
接下来，我们还调查了公司的起源，选址问题，比如说地形，还有商业模式以及销售策略。
成功的SaaS公司分布在硅谷附近，对硅谷的依赖性远远超过任何其他科技公司，大约41%的SaaS公司总部都设在硅谷。
另外有20%在美国东北地区，9.1%在美国中西部，还有少量公司零星散布在德克萨斯州、大西洋沿岸中部地区、落基山脉还有西北地区。只有5家公司坐落于加拿大或其他美国之外的地方。
我们的顶级SaaS公司销售渠道往往相当广泛，涉及各个行业。而产品的购买决策者要么是首席营销官（CMO，占27.2%），要么就是首席信息官（CIO，占27.3%）。
剩下的18%，目标市场就比较专一了，比如说Medidata、Phase Forward以及Veeva都专注于医药市场，Athenahealth专注于医疗保健，RealPage则专注于房地产。有些公司目标市场更为具体，比如说Dealertrack，就专门负责汽车经销商管理，Fleetmatics就负责车队管理，OpenTable专注于餐厅，Q2 Holdings一门心思盯紧了区域和社区银行。
这些SaaS公司中有36.5%，上市也好，被收购也罢，从创始到变现可能需要超过10年的时间。我们想知道，如果给他们足够长的时间，他们能不能努力攀爬，达成其他成功指标？
我们列表当中最新上市的那些公司，其发展前景怎样？早期分析显示，这些公司发展势头相当强劲，仅6.7%的公司IPO之后显示收入增长比去年同期涨幅低于25%，而其中占42.2%的公司IPO当天收入增长达到100%以上，发展势头相当迅猛。
SaaS公司成长之路相当艰辛，且充满未知数。没有任何一张地图可以帮你准备好一路上必要的临时措施，给你足够的勇气。但是我们希望SaaS成就数据库可以提供一些有价值的见解，帮你考虑到所有方方面面的因素，助你建立一个成功的SaaS的企业软件公司。
What Elements Do Successful SaaS Companies have?
What does it take to build a billion-dollar SaaS enterprise-software company? We gave a 30,000-foot answer to this complex — and fascinating — question in a recent TechCrunch post, The SaaS Adventure.
To recap: We’ve observed seven key phases in most SaaS companies’ go-to-market success. Most of the phases center around a mantra we call “triple, triple, double, double, double” (T2D3 for short), referring to a company’s annualized revenue growth.
We dubbed this journey the “SaaS Adventure,” which is broadly how we view the job of a VC: to serve as a more experienced travel guide to SaaS companies in their climb to the billion-dollar summit and, hopefully, beyond.
We got a very strong response to the SaaS Adventure post and the T2D3 concept. We were also, at the same time, impressed with fellow VC Aileen Lee’s original unicorn-company analysis, which she just updated with some new lessons last month. All this spurred us to conduct a more in-depth analysis of SaaS companies.
Our new analysis, which is featured in part here, provides high-level takeaways, as well as a more nuanced picture of the climb to SaaS success — all of which we hope will help new entrepreneurs fashion their own successful climbs.
Think of this as an expedition map; what mountaineers like to call “beta”: valuable advice to newcomers attempting a particular climb. We plan on refreshing this data set periodically with accompanying analysis.
So here we introduce the SaaS Success Database: a round-up of 66 leading SaaS companies, public and private, that have defined the industry. The database encompasses companies with a realized exit of more than $500 million (either in the public markets or via an M&A transaction, as of June 30) and private companies valued at $1 billion or higher.
The SaaS Success Database traces SaaS companies’ evolution back to their early days, when they were known as Application Service Providers (ASPs). It includes eight companies in which Battery was lucky enough to invest.
Twenty percent of the companies on our list were founded prior to 1997, but most were established after that and before the 2008 crash; 36.3 percent started up between 1998 and 2002 and 30.3 percent between 2003 and 2007.
Those founded on or after 2008 — AppDynamics*, Castlight Health, Domo, Hootsuite, New Relic, Slack, Sprinklr* and Yammer — fired ahead on all cylinders despite the tough economy, reinforcing that it’s not usually the market conditions, but instead the team and the product-market fit that can lead to success.
In future posts, we’ll tackle crucial issues surrounding each phase of the adventure, and talk to CEOs of some of the companies in this database who’ve made the climb themselves. (We’ve already spoken to two of these successful executives on video: Phil Fernandez of Marketo* and Jyoti Bansal of AppDynamics*.)
In terms of who is starting these successful companies, our analysis suggests they are mostly founded by teams: Two founders (comprising 34.9 percent of the total) was the most common configuration for companies in our database, with 33.3 percent of companies founded by three or more people (up to seven in our database). Surprisingly, these founding teams were often strangers: 60.0 percent had no prior history of working together. Only 31.8 percent of SaaS companies on the list had a solo founder.
In addition to demographics, we’ve examined these founding CEOs’ backgrounds and asked questions like: How many were first-time CEOs? (Just over 67 percent — although SaaS CEOs are typically grown-ups: 60 percent of founding CEOs started their companies in their 30s, 13.8 percent in their 40s and 6.2 percent when they were over 50.)
What kind of education and work experience did they bring to the job? Did these founding CEOs stick around for the IPO or other exits? If not, what characteristics differentiated the new CEO at each of those exit stages? These are all points we’ll dive into.
Next, we’ll examine the companies’ origins, addressing questions like geography, business model and selling strategy.
SaaS success turns out to be less Silicon Valley-centric than other areas of tech: nearly 41 percent of our companies were Valley-based, followed by close to 20 percent in the Northeast, 9.1 percent in the Midwest, and a pretty even sprinkling between Texas, the Mid-Atlantic region, the Rocky Mountains and the Northwest. (Only five companies hailed from Canada or other points outside the U.S.)
Our top SaaS players tend to sell broadly across many industries (82 percent), with the buying decision-maker for the product being either the CMO (27.2 percent) or CIO (27.3 percent).
The remaining 18 percent of the companies we studied target a specific vertical, like pharma (Medidata, Phase Forward, Veeva), healthcare (athenahealth), real estate (RealPage) or even super-specific verticals (Dealertrack for auto-dealership management, Fleetmatics for fleet management, OpenTable for restaurants, or Q2 Holdings* for regional and community banks).
In future posts we’ll address other questions from this phase, such as: Did these companies switch to SaaS delivery or start off that way, and how does such a shift typically impact a company’s future success?
Among public SaaS companies, is there a “sweet spot” for revenue per customer? Should your SaaS company aim to land a few whales or many smaller fish — and how does each approach impact subsequent growth?
At base camp leading to the ascent or exit, we wondered: Given a relatively long time to liquidity — 36.5 percent of our companies that have either gone public or been acquired took more than 10 years from founding to liquidity — does a longer (or shorter) climb correlate to other success metrics? What’s the typical financial profile of a successful SaaS company on the verge of a public exit? How does IPO day usually go for top SaaS companies? All are topics we’ll address soon.
And what are the growth prospects for the newly public companies on our list? Early analysis shows it’s very strong, with only 6.7 percent of companies displaying year-over-year revenue growth under 25 percent at the time of IPO; 42.2 percent, the biggest group, were companies roaring ahead with more than 100 percent revenue growth on IPO day.
The SaaS climb is arduous and full of the unexpected. No map can fully prepare you for the improvisations necessary along the way, or give you the guts for the climb itself. But we hope the SaaS Success Database provides valuable insights into building a successful SaaS enterprise-software company — including all the elements of that trek.
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