Top Challenges Facing SaaS Companies in 2023 and How to Overcome Them

Discover the current challenges facing the SaaS industry, from slowing growth and tougher sales to increased competition and budget cuts. Explore insights from Jason Lemkin and find out if these resonate with you. Learn tactics to navigate these hurdles or reset your expectations.

Created time

Jul 15, 2024 11:44 AM

Author

Alex Rainey

SaaS is a Tough Space to Be in Right Now

Competitors everywhere you look. Enterprises shedding & consolidating providers. Growth slowing across the industry.

Came across this “list of challenges” for SaaS from Jason Lemkin — which resonated like crazy.

Do these resonate with you? And do you have any tactics to combat some of them?

Or do we just have to reset expectations?

Challenges in SaaS Right Now 👇

Growth has slowed everywhere

True overall. The average public SaaS company is now growing less than 20% a year!

Sales is so much harder, and the old playbooks aren’t working well

Folks don’t want to work as hard anymore

There are even more competitors than ever

Every leader is competing with each other, trampling on their turf

Examples: Gong v. Outreach v. Salesloft v. Zoom, or Rippling vs. Deal vs. Gusto vs ….

Layoffs have become normalized

Customers are angry from endless price increases and upsells

Budgets are being cut to find budget for AI

True

Every renewal is not just a battle but a downgrade

Profitability is all that matters

VCs have checked out in a lot of non-AI SaaS

A feeling we’re in a massive “downturn”, even as the overall U.S. economy is booming

A feeling products have fallen out of product-market fit, or at least, become more “nice to haves” vs. must haves

Even healthy customers scrutinizing budgets in ways they haven’t in many years

Happy customers churning simply because they have to cut apps

And Last but Not Least 😂

A feeling things actually