SaaStr · 2013-03-25 · 4819d

When Big Companies Can Kill You (And When They Can't)

Jason Lemkin analyzes the conditions under which large corporations can successfully enter and dominate startup markets versus when they fail. Drawing from his experience at Adobe/EchoSign and as an F500 tech VP, he identifies three critical success factors: top-level executive support, acquisition of sufficiently mature companies, and strong product attachment to existing platforms.

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Metrics in this report

Development Lead Requirement

24months

minimum

Competitive advantage needed to survive BigCo competition

EchoSign ARR (Annual Projection)

100+$m

estimated

Adobe Sign annual projection for fiscal year

EchoSign ARR (Quarter)

64$m

single quarter

Adobe Sign post-acquisition performance

Evernote Headcount

400+employees

minimum

Required organizational scale for sustained innovation

Product Parity Development Time

18months

minimum

Time required for BigCo clone to reach feature parity