korrents

What Jason Cohen thinks about SaaS

@jason-cohen · 24 positions · 0 changes of mind

Founder of WP Engine and Smart Bear, and the author of the long-running startup blog A Smart Bear.

Jason Cohen did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

11 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Jason Cohen has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingA cancelling customer already survived an improbable gauntlet to buy, which makes churn an emotional emergency before it is ever a metric.

    Their wordsThey actually had the budget and bought the stupid thing. Then they went through onboarding and invested their time etc etc. That is a crazy gauntlet that almost no one gets through.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 3rd of 24 in this recording

  3. Our readingCancellations always overtake marketing, because cancellations grow automatically with the company while marketing grows only as fast as you can improve it.

    Their wordsMarketing grows only as fast as you can improve marketing. We all know that's quite hard actually. It's linear. It's hard to find new channels that aren't trivial. Like, it's hard. Of course, we're going to do it, but like it it's hard. Whereas, cancellations grow automatically as you grow, right? So, cancellations always overtake marketing for this reason.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 4th of 24 in this recording

  5. Our readingEvery subscription business has a hard ceiling on its size: new customers per month divided by the cancellation rate.

    Their wordsSo let's suppose you add 100 customers a month and you have 5% cancellation. So 100 divided by 5% is 2,000. So a company like that will never have more than 2,000 customers.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 5th of 24 in this recording

  7. Our reading"Too expensive" is never the real reason a customer cancels, because they already decided the price was acceptable when they bought.

    Their wordsAnd that is never ever ever the reason. How do I know? Because they already looked at your homepage, read all the stuff, saw what you promised, looked at the pricing page, and decided to buy it.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 8th of 24 in this recording

  9. Our readingMost cancellation happens in a customer's first days, so small onboarding changes have effects that later changes never have.

    Their wordsUm all almost all companies have a whole lot more uh cancellation in the first day, 30 days, 90 days, depends, right? But the first period than the whole rest of the customer's life. And also small changes in the onboarding can have large effects on cancellation.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 10th of 24 in this recording

  11. Our readingRaising prices usually leaves signups unchanged or increases them, which is not what the textbook demand curve predicts.

    Their wordsSo what usually h what often happens is you raise prices and signups don't change. When I say signups, I mean the like signups per month, you know, the rate at sign or signups go up. This happens all the time.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 12th of 24 in this recording

  13. Our readingPrice selects the market: a serious buyer reads a low price as evidence that the product cannot possibly be good enough.

    Their wordsjust think about a company with a thousand employees and 400 million in revenue or whatever. And um if they see a product that's, you know, $2 a month or even $100 a month, their thought is like, well, that can't be good enough. They're not mature enough. It's not going to do enough.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 13th of 24 in this recording

  15. Our readingPrice is not the number on the page; the structure and the positioning are as much a part of pricing as the number is.

    Their wordsthe the largest point is pricing is not just the number on the page. It's positioning. It's how their budgets work. It's how it's structured.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 14th of 24 in this recording

  17. Our readingSelling a saving caps what you can charge; selling more of what the buyer already values raises that cap by an order of magnitude.

    Their wordsIt's just that it caps this price and this value that is they perceive that you do. Whereas if you deliver more of the value that they already value, it's I don't want to say uncapped completely, but like the cap is maybe an order of magnitude higher than saving.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 15th of 24 in this recording

  19. Our readingNet revenue retention flatters a business, because a percentage lost always needs a larger percentage gained to get back to even.

    Their wordsWhen you have a loss, a percentage loss, you have to have a greater percentage gain just to get back to where you were. In this case, a loss of 20% requires a gain of 25% to get back to where you were.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 16th of 24 in this recording

  21. Our readingNo software company reaches real scale with net revenue retention below one hundred percent, because cancellation simply wins.

    Their wordsthere should be no way to get a big company like a public SAS company Unless NR is greater than 100, like otherwise cancellation should just win. And that is in fact the case.

    ↗The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)youtube.com 17th of 24 in this recording