A short conversation (YouTube transcript) featuring Jason M. Lemkin and another speaker about SaaS market dynamics after the pandemic. They argue many companies and buyers over-purchased software during the pandemic, causing a pullback in growth and retention; by Q3 the market is loosening, but companies whose growth fell drastically (e.g., from triple-digit to teens) face difficult choices. Sequoia is invoked as a context for evaluating portfolio companies.
Chapters
Growth retention for people were low and I think we're just getting back into a better spot. That's what I think. It wasn't there. Just one of the frustrating things. There's so many like zurp, it's interest rates. I think people just bought too much during a generational pandemic. They bought too much software and so they dialed it back, maybe too much. Because that's what we do. And we're through that. Right. We're through the over buying cycle for the most part. I think it's that simple, isn't it? I think it's that simple. Yeah. And we're seeing it. So if you're out, you're listening and you get a shitty Q3 and Q4 is not looking good. It's not the market.
That's the message. I try to say you can't blame the market anymore if you got a.
Pass in 2022.
Or 2023.
Like, you gotta be honest. Yeah. Even Q1, Q2, I think we're still tight as Q3. It finally loosened up. Yeah. And look, this is a. This is. This may be a question where there's no good answer. But especially as you're looking at stuff in Sequoia, if someone isn't seeing any.
Rebound at all.
Now, and let's say growth is weak, let's say.
It was great in 2021. Okay, it was 100%.
And now it's.
22%.
Or what's your advice? Is there any advice? Not if, if it's fallen from 100 to 80, it's one thing. But if you have fallen far and look, there's a lot of companies north.
Of 100 million in ARR.
Where growth is in the teens now or lower.
Right.
Any meta advice that you see yourself or at Sequoia.
