The Fastest Growing SaaS Companies of 2018 | Hacker News Reader

The Fastest Growing SaaS Companies of 2018

academyocean.com

59 pointsvladimirpolo31 comments

I tried to find how the ranking is calculated, tried signing up for the sources they used, which in turn led to email like below.

This is just PR-spam several levels deep.

> Reply back to this email, and copy 2 of your friends who are SaaS CEO's, investors or just studying SaaS. I'll reply back and give you and your friends a full .CSV download of these rankings.

Hi Paul, I'm CEO of the company which has created this list. As you might notice, it is voting for the most popular SaaS company among the Fastest Growing. How we found which companies are the Fastest Growing? First, we took a list of Nathan Latka, who hosts on the most popular SaaS podcast and has a huge database of SaaS companies with their metrics. Second, we took a list of the companies that have shown massive growth on Linkedin in 2018. And we also added the data provided by Similarweb. It sounds very simple, but it took more than a week of our team just to make this list of TOP50 companies the most accurate way. Now we welcome everybody to vote for the companies from this list. Hope that helps. Vlad

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that a list of SaaS companies are mostly in the surveillance economy, but it is a little depressing that only a few aren't in the business of collecting consumer data.

Agree.. Very narrowed niche towards crm

It's quite sad that most of them are traffic/ad optimization/analysis companies. Clicking on the link I was hoping for a nifty list of tools that benefit various (web-connected) industries.

I think we’re finally out of saas ideas. Most of these seem to be sales, logs, or analytics.

and lots of them are just parrots of bigger saas companies that have become bloated so there is room for a smaller, lighter competitor.

Do you have some examples? I’d be curious.

cloudcherry. they even have a comparison of bigger SaaS competitors on their homepage (e.g Qualtrics).

close.io, a smaller, lighter Salesforce.

Piwik Pro, the description of the company sounds like google tag manager and google analytics

here's the top 15 from the list if you just want to know the company names. I'm not going to post all 50. Sales and analysis/analytics are pretty dominant keywords it looks like.

1. ClickFunnels 2. Lucky Orange 3. CloudCherry 4. Vainu 5. Instapage 6. Proposify 7. Piwik PRO 8. Backblaze 9. Chargify 10. SaleСycle 11. ChurnZero 12. GetResponse 13. Logz.io 14. Talkable 15. Front

Is it just me or does Click Funnel have an extremely stressful website ?

They've used the "sales letter" approach for a while. The reason is probably that it's very effective. Rubs some people the wrong way, but results are results.

So much CRM and marketing

I feel like consumer SaaS has not really caught on yet

Good to see diversity in most of the teams :) Things are definitely changing.

You are right! That was one of the reasons we've launched this list — we wanted to show how different are the personalities in these SaaS product teams.

with few exceptions from this list, ageism still seems like it is in full flight. I dread growing old in tech.

Because we all know unequal results equals discrimination, every time. No other variables

Less women? Sexism - Less old people? Ageism - Less cats? Dogism

Sounds good to me

there is a legitimate economic (I'm not advocating this) argument for hiring younger. Younger devs are cheaper, often more idealistic and more willing to work unpaid overtime. Throw some cheap perks in there (catering, beanbags etc) to encourage them to spend all their time on company turf and I'm sure it adds up to a greater company benefit than hiring an older dev even allowing for experience/skill difference.

All because they are at the healthiest time of their lives. Also that means cheaper healthcare plans

There is a lot of wisdom to be found in people who do not make their place of employment the end all be all of their existence, even if for a period of time.

There's certainly a lot more to life than work. Doubly so in your 20s.

It's interesting because as the company I'm with (SalesLoft, 35 on this list) has gotten larger, with more revenue and goals, we've been hiring more experienced people to help guide the company. I do wonder if these people come with higher $$ expectations that aren't possible in the early days of a startup without taking on significant amounts of risk. I feel lucky to work with these people because they know what they're talking about and aren't afraid to say it.

I look forward to leading others with their level of experience one day.

how is posting a picture of the team with a small description of the company showing off different "personalities"?

You are right, I used the wrong word. It shows the persons who work in each company (comparing to other lists, where only the logo of the company is being shown).

Excuse my ignorance as I am not coming from a progressive western rich country but why is it important to have a forced diversity in a company? Why is it not enough to treat every person without bias or discrimination and judge them mainly on their skills ?

It makes me sad to see how white those teams pictures are.

Let me be clear, I do not think it is the fault of those companies nor their duty to fill their jobs with anyone but the most qualified for the job. Also, let me be clear this is referring to the US-based companies. The fault lies in those communities where non-whites mostly reside not having the proper vision by their leaders getting children ready for the future. The pictures grossly make that obvious.

Being a non-white tech leader that came from one of those communities I know what it takes to rise above it all. It is not an easy path.

... as long as you exclude age as a diversity metric.

I did a quick scan of the top 20 companies, and I found about 10 people who plausibly looked over 40, and maybe 2 who cracked 50. Maybe I missed a few, but I feel certain that I am directionally correct.

Maybe SaaS isn’t a domain for older people, but somehow I imagine that there is no shortage of folks over 40 who could add significant value to these companies if they could get past the “culture fit” filter.

I will also add that while women seem to be decently represented, black people do not seem represented at all. I found 1 in the top 20 companies in a quick scan.

I took two passes, and only spotted 2 black women on the teams. Which is unsettling because:

1. These are the people building the tools that'll be a part of _everyone's_ lives.

2. If these companies continue to be successful, these are the people who'll have the capital to continue to shape the future

3. They're often already at the point where it's really awkward (and uncomfortable) for a person of colour to join and be the first and only one there.

I don't disagree with your point, per se. But...

>only spotted 2 black women

>a person of colour to join and be the first and only one there.

Based on just guessing from the photos, ClickFunnel, CloudCherry, Instapage, Proposify, Chargify, and quite a few others have women of colour.

I don't think the pictures presented represent the current/full team. My team's picture on there is about 2 years old. We definitely have more than 2 people of color...

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