Public SaaS companies are trading at 3.2x revenues — the lowest in 14 years. Is SaaS finished?

Some SaaS companies are slowly dying. But others are growing faster than they have in years. 

The difference: product velocity. 

The Good Bucket and the Bad Bucket

I put SaaS companies into 2 buckets…

Good Bucket

1. Shipped an agent AND
2. Revenue growth accelerating

Bad Bucket

1. No agent shipped OR
2. Revenue growth flat or declining

Most SaaS companies have shipped some form of AI agent product by now. Those few that haven’t, stick a fork in them.

But is their agent any good? We should be able to tell from the revenue growth.

If the new agent is super useful, it will drive new customers and expanding ACVs at existing customers. If not, people won’t pay for it.

The Good Bucket: Twilio

Twilio is a Good Bucket company. They’ve shipped some awesome tools that let agents make calls and send text messages using Twilio’s technology. 

Developers are building tons of cool new products on Twilio. And sure enough, Twilio’s revenue growth has nearly doubled.

The market recognizes Twilio’s good work. The stock trades at 6.2x revenues. Not a huge multiple, but a lot better than the market multiple of 3.2x.

Let’s see what happens when you don’t ship a popular agent…

The Bad Bucket: ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo powers agents from Salesforce and others with its data.

But it hasn’t shipped its own popular agentic product. Annual revenue is flat going back to 2023. 

Compare that to hungry startups like Gojiberry. In just a few months, they’ve popped up a GTM agent that automates outbound. They’ve quickly scaled to millions in ARR.

If ZoomInfo shipped that fast, maybe they wouldn’t be trading at 0.7 times revenues! 

ZoomInfo still has great data. But it’s fading into the background, nothing more than a boring “system of record.” 

How long until someone replaces it entirely? 

Wrap-Up

If you’re not growing, you’re dying.

Ship agentic tools customers want, and you’ll win new business. 

Fail to ship anything compelling, and the corporate technology spend goes to someone else. Revenue growth slows, then stops. Investors leave your stock for dead. 

The SaaS market is brutal right now. But the opportunity has never been bigger.

What are you going to ship today?

More on tech: 

You Finally Closed Your Funding Round — Time to Panic?

Why Some Founders Raise Millions with a Text — And Others Can’t Get a Single Check: Traction vs. Track Record

Tasklet: The Easiest Agent Builder I’ve Ever Used

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