David Sacks

Partner

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David Sacks is co-founder and partner at Craft. He has been a successful founder and investor for over two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies in tech. David has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish.

David first got involved in the technology industry in 1999 when he joined early-stage startup Confinity, later renamed PayPal. Serving as the company’s first product leader and then as COO, David built and ran many of the company’s key teams, including product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international, customer service, fraud operations, and HR. He pivoted the product from beaming money on Palm Pilots to emailing money on the web, and introduced the business model. When the company IPO’d on the Nasdaq in 2002, David was 29 — the median age of the “PayPal Mafia” executives listed on the S-1. PayPal was later acquired by eBay and eventually spun back out into a publicly traded company (under ticker symbol PYPL).

In 2008, David founded enterprise collaboration company Yammer, which was one of the first SaaS startups to apply consumer growth tactics to enterprise software. Yammer’s viral approach made it one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in history, exceeding eight million enterprise users in just four years. As Founder/CEO of Yammer, David grew the company to roughly $60 million in sales and 500 employees. In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion. It remains one of the fastest unicorn exits in SaaS.

In 2008, David founded enterprise collaboration company Yammer, which was one of the first SaaS startups to apply consumer growth tactics to enterprise software. Yammer’s viral approach made it one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in history, exceeding eight million enterprise users in just four years. As Founder/CEO of Yammer, David grew the company to roughly $60 million in sales and 500 employees. In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion. It remains one of the fastest unicorn exits in SaaS. “Bottom Up SaaS,” the strategy he pioneered at Yammer by combining product-led growth with B2B sales. Bottom-up SaaS companies combine the growth potential of B2C with the enterprise budgets of B2B, leading to explosive outcomes when ARR goes viral.

David is co-host of the All In podcast, alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. Started in 2020, the "Besties" discuss a wide range of topics including technology, economy, politics and social issues. All In is routinely the #1 pod in tech and top 15 overall.

David is well known in Silicon Valley for his product acumen. AngelList’s Naval Ravikant has called David “the world’s best product strategist.” David likes to begin pitch meetings by seeing a product demo.

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Other Investments
Addepar, CloudKitchens, Eventbrite, Gusto, Houzz, Intercom, Lyft, Opendoor, PlanGrid, Postmates, Quora, Scribd, Vanta, and Xoom
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Companies
David Sacks
blog posts
2
MINUTes
Why We Invested in Ragie

We invested in Ragie, a RAG-as-a-Service provider making it easier for developers to incorporate AI into their apps.

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3
MINUTes
Announcing $1.3 Billion for Craft Ventures IV and Growth II

With our fourth early-stage fund & second growth fund, we continue to focus on B2B software in the era of generative AI.

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3
MINUTes
Why We Invested in Knock

Craft leads the $12 million Series A in Knock, the notification infrastructure platform for engineering and product team

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3
MINUTes
The Difficulty Ratio

A fundamental principle in SaaS sales is that the size of a deal must be large enough to justify the effort required to close it.

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3
MINUTes
What is Bottom Up SaaS?

Bottom-up SaaS (Software as a Service) is a go-to-market strategy in which a SaaS company targets individual users

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5
MINUTes
Why We Founded SaaSGrid

Why we built the first dashboarding product specifically for SaaS companies to get perfect, real-time charts to track every SaaS metrics.

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3
MINUTes
Why We Invested in Vanta

Craft Ventures is leading a $110 million Series B for Vanta, the leading automated security and compliance platform.

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3
MINUTes
Announcing Craft II: $500 Million for Founders Backing Founders

We’re excited to announce the closing of Craft Ventures’ $500 million second fund.

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4
MINUTes
Real-World Virality

Viral loops have long been one of the most explosive ways for online products to grow. Now a new generation of...

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4
MINUTes
Happy Talk versus Hard Talk

On Friday President Trump declared a national emergency. The market shot up 10% in a relief rally.

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5
MINUTes
The Gross Margin Problem: Lessons for Tech-Enabled Startups

The topic du jour in tech right now is the sudden reappraisal of some high-flying startups based on unit economics...

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4
MINUTes
The Sharp Startup: When PayPal Found Product-Market Fit

Twenty years ago this month, PayPal found product-market fit. I remember the moment vividly.

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7
MINUTes
The Wilderness Period

Between the time a seed-stage SaaS startup ships its MVP and closes its first few paying customers is the Wilderness...

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7
MINUTes
Enterprises vs SMBs: Who’s the Better Customer for B2B SaaS Startups?

One of the first decisions that a B2B startup has to make is who its initial customer is going to be.

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18
MINUTes
BlitzFail: How Not to Go Off the Rails

A look into the recurring patterns behind the dramatic downfalls of once-promising tech startups.

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6
MINUTes
The Burn Multiple

As the economic crisis deepens, capital efficiency becomes a more pressing issue for startups.

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14
MINUTes
Failure is NOT an option — and other thoughts from Twenty Minute VC

Harry Stebbings was kind enough to have me on his podcast The Twenty Minute VC.

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5
MINUTes
Be Like Mike: What Founders Can Learn from The Last Dance

ESPN's new series The Last Dance is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at Michael Jordan's sixth and final...

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6
MINUTes
Freemium vs Free Trial: Which is Better for SaaS Startups?

“Free” strategies have become an essential part of the winning formula for SaaS startups. But which model is better ?

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8
MINUTes
The One Who Defines the Category Wins the Category

No objective is more important for SaaS founders than early category leadership.

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12
MINUTes
The SaaS Board Meeting

Soon after a startup raises its Series A round, it begins to have board meetings for the first time, and I’m often...

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13
MINUTes
The Cadence: How to Operate a SaaS Startup

You think you need a COO. What you really need is an operating philosophy.

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5
MINUTes
The SaaS Org Chart

You’re the founder of a nicely growing SaaS startup which has just raised a Series A, Series B, or Series C funding...

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8
MINUTes
The SaaS Metrics That Matter

One of the best features of SaaS businesses is how easy they are to measure. Only a handful of metrics really matter.

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3
MINUTes
Why We Invested ClickUp

Today Craft Ventures is excited to announce that we are leading the $35 million Series A in ClickUp.

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3
MINUTes
Why We Invested in Sourcegraph

Today Craft Ventures is excited to announce that we are leading the $23 million Series B in Sourcegraph.

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2
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Why We Invested in SentiLink

Today Craft Ventures is thrilled to announce we are leading the $70M Series B in SentiLink through our new Growth Fund.

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2
MINUTes
Why We Invested in CloudTrucks

A virtual trucking carrier that empowers independent truck drivers raises its $115 million growth round.

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2
MINUTes
Why We Invested in Roboflow

Today we’re pleased to announce that Craft Ventures is leading the $20 million Series A round of Roboflow.

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