Christoph Janz π
@chrija
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SaaS VC @pointninecap. Seed investor @algolia, @contentful, @factorialhr, @incident_io, @loom, @nexhealthhq, @poolside, @typeform, @whereby, @zendesk
Zoom, Whereby, Loom
Joined December 2006
New blog post:. Rumors of the death of software are greatly exaggerated. cc @levie @mattturck
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Dear @elonmusk,. Youβre the greatest inventor, engineer, and entrepreneur of all times. Iβm deeply grateful for what youβre doing for humanity. But for the love of god, please do your research before you decide if youβd like to endorse the AfD in Germany.
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Extremely successful serial entrepreneur turned tech CEO turned venture capitalist turned podcaster turned Trump supporter turned absolutely bonkers MAGA conspiracy theoristβ¦.
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RT if you (like me) start every spreadsheet with a silly narrow empty column and a silly empty row because your eyes hurt without some extra space.
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Most startups are like Schroedingerβs Cat. Could go to $1B but it could also go to zero. And it takes 10 years to open the box.
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Some time ago Iβve started a Twitter list of female VCs. That list is now more than 300 women strong!. If youβre looking to strengthen your cap table or diversify your network, take a look:. And please let me know who I should add! ππ½.
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Today we're making an important announcement. Take a look.
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One of the advantages of sticking to a strategy is that when you have a new fund, you don't have to waste time on comms. :-)
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In the next 1-2 years, 6-8 of our SaaS seed investments will cross $100M ARR. None of them was as fast as T2D3. Most of them had a bad year. I think itβs time to bury the T2D3 idea.
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I think some people will soon find out that they bought the wrong Zoom today.
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There are a few blog posts and other resources that I keep recommending to early-stage SaaS founders over and over again. β¬οΈ.
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1/ Like everyone I know, Iβve been horrified by the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. I havenβt published a post about the terrorist attacks because I wasnβt sure if anyone is (or should be) interested in my opinion on the topic. Iβm an early-stage tech.
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Nice overview - 9 Ways to Build Virality into your Product
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Areas that 99% of early-stage startups shouldn't innovate in:. - Hiring processes.- Org structure & titles.- Sales team compensation.- ESOP.- Pricing.- Investor updates.- . Focus on product and distribution. For everything else, just copy what works for 1000s of others.
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It looks like suddenly, having 20+ years of experience of not clubbing, not going out for drinks, working remotely, being in video calls all day long, and, most importantly, having a bad haircut has become a huge competitive advantage.
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Iβm pretty sure that if you knew who youβre talking about youβd be embarrassed to endorse them, even if you agree with some of their policy proposals.
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Next time I get a cold email from an inv. banker for a Series B I'll reach out to the founders & will suggest they fire the banker immediately. It takes 1 min to research that we're a seed investor. Founders deserve better. (even those that hire bankers for their Series B π).
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One. Billion. Dollar. ARR. πΎβ€οΈππππ. ππ½
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Building a true enterprise SaaS product ($100k+ ACV) costs at least a few millions, so you have only two options: a) you raise a $3-5M+ seed round before PMF or b) you start at the bottom of the market and move upmarket slowly but surely. Is there another option that Iβm missing?.
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Congrats to Brian Armstrong and the entire Coinbase team on their amazing IPO! As we celebrate their historic accomplishment, I'd like to share a few reflections on our investment into the company. On April 14, 2021, I've bought 100 Coinbase shares. That's all.
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We've rented this beautiful hotel close to Barcelona for ~ 180 #p9family founders and a few close friends for the next 3 days. If we can do this as a seed fund, a first-class 7 day trip to the Maldives is the minimum you should get from your later-stage investors. π
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Founders: Please don't let VCs put you under pressure to sign a Term Sheet or even fall into the "exploding term sheet" trap. Demanding founders to decide within 24 hours is disrespectful, and term sheets with an expiry date are utter nonsense.
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If you see yourself in a ranking ahead of Sequoia, you don't ask what the ranking is about. Just hang it on the wall and live happily forever. ;-)
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1/ To celebrate one of my favorite 80s songs, 99 Luftballons (99 Red Balloons), and our long-standing relationship with the number 9, we've raised a β¬99,999,999 fund.
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14 years ago today, a wonderful surgical team at @KlinikumStutt removed a tumor from the body of our 7 weeks old son. 100-150 years earlier he almost certainly wouldnβt have survived. In fact, he wouldnβt even have been born as I had a critical surgery as a baby too. #lovescience.
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Looking for an experienced VP of Engineering for a Series A stage unicorn-in-the-making. Actually, two of them. Both hyper-growth SaaS with no shortage of tech challenges. Will buy you a iPhone 12 Plus Pro Max (or however itβs called) for successful referrals. RTs welcome. :).
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1/ Looking for a VP Product, Head of Product, and several Product Managers for several *amazing* P9 Family companies. Different stages and geos (Barcelona, London, Berlin, Copenhagen + remote). A successful referral gets you a new MacBook Air M1. A retweet gets you good karma.
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When I got into SaaS investing in 2008-2010 Iβve learned that fast-growing SaaS companies are valued at around 8-10x ARR. It took me a decade to realize that the formula is *actually* ARR x YY. RT if youβre getting it, comment if not. ;-).
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Is there such a thing as 50 under 50? Asking for a friend.
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SaaS Funding Napkin: Find out if your SaaS startup is ready to get funded
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Valuations: Crazy. π€―.Round sizes: Crazy. π€ͺ.How quickly things get done: Crazy. β²οΈ. Also crazy: The number of great startups. π. If we weren't bandwidth-constrained we'd have done one investment per week in the last few months.
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To all the young VCs whoβve learned the craft in the last 18 months: Your AI has been trained on anomalies. Forget everything. Sorry to break it to you.
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I think Iβve found the Da Vinci code of SaaS valuations. (Current year a.d. minus 2000) x ARR.
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Looks like this year, for the first time ever, VC investments in European startups might exceed EU agricultural subsidies.
Venture capital investment in European startups is close to hitting $100 billion this year. This is close to the annual amount invested in USA startups just a few years ago:
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Watching VCs brag, humblebrag, sometimes share knowledge, and occasionally have their little fights on Twitter must be quite entertaining for founders. Too bad LPs aren't that active on Twitter!.
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I'm looking for an Associate. Here are all the details:.
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If you were planning to attend my session at #SaaStr2020 or to say hello Iβd be happy to do a webinar and virtual office hours. LMK if youβre interested.
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As a venture capitalist, I like to explain to people what "capital" means by tracing the word "capital" with a pen. And I always wear a suit and have some coins on my desk so people can see I have a lot of money. #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob
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227 + 10 + 16 + 6 + 11 = 270. Welcome back, my dear Americans. We missed you in the last four years. Yours.The free world
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1/ Looking for a VP Growth, a VP Marketing, a Head of Demand Gen, and a few growth persons for several *amazing* Seed/Series A-stage SaaS companies from the P9 Fam. A successful VP/Head referral gets you an Apple Silicon MacBook with a gazillion teraflops/sec. RTs welcome ππ½.
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Bye-bye SF, bye-bye Mountain View. Thank you to everyone who took the time to meet me in the last 6 months! . Iβm coming back to Germany with a lot of inspiration, great memories β and two additions to the P9 Family that Iβm super thrilled about. πͺπ€. Iβll be back soon, but now
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Dear Google, I love your search engine, but you can keep increasing the size of the "Add Google Meet" button until it's full-screen and I still won't use Google Meet.
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Worst sources of incoming/network seed deal-flow:. 1. Bankers.2. Lawyers.3. LPs (sorry π). Best ones:. 1. #p9family founders.2. Angel investors .3. Pre-seed funds, accelerators, occasionally seed funds, every now and then later-stage VCs. Exceptions apply.
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A VC: Weβre not investing in founders who we didnβt meet in person pre-Covid. Weβre struggling to build trust over Zoom. Same VC: Why is your new business ARR down? It canβt be that hard to close enterprise deals over Zoom. (Iβve made this up. Just for fun.).
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If anyone still has some of our 2019 napkins lying around, please feel free to use them as toilet paper. It's hard to buy toilet paper these days, and the 2019 data is now so irrelevant that flushing it down the toilet feels appropriate.
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1/ Maybe we can all agree on this?. - Huge achievements require a combination of a) talent, b) hard work (hours), and c) luck. - It sort of works like a x b x c = chances of (or degree of) success. The more talent you have and the harder you work, the less luck you need.
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EU tech people, can we please all leave Clubhouse immediately and get back to work? :-). I did one session a few weeks ago. Since the weekend, I'm getting flooded with Clubhouse notifications.
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1/ One of the anti-perks of being a VC is that after a few years in the job, youβve accumulated so many mistakes (which youβre constantly being reminded of) that you canβt help feeling like a f***ing idiot. Case in point:
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Just saw the term "negative burn" again. Our industry is so used to burning $$$, we forgot that there's a word for the opposite of "loss" :).
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We've retired our Google Doc "website" and have just launched a (simple) proper one. How do you like it?. PS: Still working out a few kinks.
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Itβs fascinating that every 5-10.years thereβs a new communication app that is one of the most successful tech companies of its era: ICQ, Skype, WhatsApp, Zoom.
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My 11 year old son has just released his first game:. Ainβt gonna give Fortnite a run for its money but itβs more than good enough to make a dad proud. Feel free to share with your kids, my son is happy about each and every βlikeβ. :-)
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Can't get enough of digging out emails from 2008 these days. Who would've thought that both @levie @mikkelsvane would become decacorn CEOs back then!
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If you're a #saas startup and working on your financial plan for 2015 you may want to take a look at this: http://t.co/RMeBgm83xy.
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If you're an angel investor and considering raising a fund, this post is for you:. I'd be interested in the experience of other people who made the move from angel to VC. LMK!.
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Great tips for writing investor updates. :).
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I've just published this post that I've been working on for a little while. Given the drastic shift in the market, I think this has become even more relevant than when I did the first draft. LMK WYT!.
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1/ Iβm all for fast, efficient fundraising processes but this year, IMO, many founders have over-optimized for speed. A few things to keep in mind. β¬οΈ.
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Quick reminder to all the Series A-and-later VCs out there: Feel free to send all the seed deals that are clogging your inboxes our way. If we end up investing in one of them, you'll be the first to know when the company raises an A.
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If youβre a seed-stage startup and youβre considering hiring a CMO, please keep in mind:. a) A CMO is someone who manages VPs or directors, who manage managers, who manage ICs. You donβt need that. b) If youβd like to hire that awesome CMO for his excellent IC . .
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1/ Iβm delighted to support Paulβs campaign with a $150,000 donation. If youβve made money in SaaS or crypto in the last years I invite you to join. Letβs be honest: yeah weβre all smart and working hard, but weβre also *incredibly* lucky.
We just had a $30,000 donation today. We have now raised enough to vaccinate 11,820 children! π.
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My current email signature is:. Not sent from my iPhone. Please excuse brevity nonetheless. Considering changing it too:. Not sent via Superhuman. So take your time, Iβm not getting read receipts.
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Humans should treat animals the same way they would like to be treated by a 100x more intelligent extraterrestrial species or a 100x more intelligent AI. How can this be controversial?.
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1/ I love BioNTechβs story. - Founded in a small city in Germany by children of immigrants from Turkey. - Raised a β¬150 million seed round from two angel investors in 2008. - No product on the market yet, but the backers never lost belief and kept investing more.
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We're sponsoring 10 tickets for female SaaS founders and SaaS founders from underrepresented minorities for SaaStock Berlin next week. LMK if you want one! First come, first serve.
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At the risk of sounding like a troll, I wholeheartedly disagree. :-). 1) Several companies in our portfolio have been growing slowly for years until they eventually took off. Usually as a result of getting to PMF in a new segment of the market (oftentimes going from rabbits . .
If you're a startup and you're not even growing 2X per year, and you're wondering if you're failing. yeah, you probably are. The interesting thing is the vast majority of those who are in that situation don't ask that question, and instead write VERY LONG investor updates.
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SO much looking forward to the P9 Founder Offsite next week!. π 3 days in the sunny south of Spain.π¦ 120+ founders from the P9 Family joining.π‘ Amazing speakers & sessions . Most importantly β finally seeing each other again in person (and in some cases, for the first time!).
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Super thrilled to go all-in on Attio. :-). Biggest innovation in CRM since Benioff moved CRM to the Cloud 20+ years ago.
We've just raised $33 million to accelerate our mission: building the definitive CRM for the next generation. β.Since launching last year, Attio has seen significant growth. We now count some of the most forward-thinking, high-growth startups as customers and have built one of
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Are you even a VC if you don't put "daring" on your website? π€£
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Congratulations, America. πΊπΈπππ₯³πΎπππ.
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Working on my #SaaStrAnnual2020 slides. Here's a draft of the ACV distribution of the ~70 largest SaaS companies at or around the time they went public.
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1/ . I thought VC has become much better and more founder-friendly in the last 10-15 years. I still think that's mostly true, but in the last few days I've heard about VCs:. - Investing in a competitor of a portfolio company without discussing/disclosing it with both companies.
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Excited to finally release the new version of our iΜΆnΜΆfamous SaaS Napkin!.
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Hey, California, want to leave the US and join the EU? (we'll have a free spot soon).
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Bullshit. Listen to the experts. All virologists and epidemiologist say the opposite. Extreme measures are needed to flatten the curve. If the curve isnβt flattened, millions of people will day because there wonβt be enough intensive care beds.
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Since 2008 we've seed-invested in three Danish companies. 1) @Zendesk ($12.5B market cap).2) @chainalysis ($4.2B valuation).3) @pentohq (just a raised $35M Series B). Not bad for a country of 5.5 million people.
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Hey, Brits, if youβre having second thoughts, itβs not too late yet. Letβs straighten out our disagreements and scrap that stupid Brexit idea. Cordially, EU.
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Thereβs a law in tech, I canβt quite put my finger on it yet, but it goes something like this: Microsoft enters every market 10 years too late. But in the end, eventually, Microsoft always wins.
Never thought I'd say this out loud. Microsoft Designer is really damn cool. I could easily see this be a real competitor to Canva. Made this in 5 seconds and as you can see to the right, copilot is giving me +12 versions. π§΅
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There's a famous saying that customers don't want a drill, they want a hole in the wall. The next generation of B2B SaaS will get much closer to delivering the hole in the wall, and will make yesterday's products look like a drill.
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