So SaaStr Annual 2024 will be even bigger than last year, which is fun. Maybe not super important in the grand scheme of things, but I think great given how many cornerstone events are down (Burning Man, Coachella, etc.).
About 106% of Last Year.
But … but … it wasn’t easy. To pull this off, we had to do much, much more:
- Add a 250+ person CMO Brunch
- Add a 200+ person CCO Summit
- Add a 200+ person CRO-CEO Poker Night
- Add a 400+ person CEO-VC Brunch
- Add an entire SaaStr.ai event-within-an-event
That’s like 5 more mini-events this year. Real work, real value.
And:
- We also sent 50% more emails than last year, from a list that is 30%+ bigger. We really grew the list of qualified names and attendees. All to sort of end up at the same goal.
- CEOs attending are actually 160% of last year! It’s just other categories are a lot more work. Even VCs seem to be … less engaged these days in many cases than a few years ago 😉
All that … to basically do as well as last year. Really well, but a lot more energy to achieve the same net output.
I’m not complaining, I’m observing. Because you may be seeing the same thing. If you cut back on marketing because growth slows … it slows even more. If you cut back on sales goals because sales is harder … sales gets even harder. It’s tough.
What I do know is we had to 2x our energy and work to hit our attendance goals. I’m proud we did. But man, what we did in the past isn’t good enough anymore. Probably not for you, either.
A related post here:
