Tom Tunguz

MARCH 30, 2023

As generative AI captivates Startupland, startups will do what they have always done: integrate new technology to build transformative businesses. In response, startups must develop moats to stake out their market. Machine learning systems, like any complex program, benefit from more use. What are these moats?

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Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

LLMs Transform the Stack : Large language models transform data in many ways. If you’re curious about the evolution of the LLM stack or the requirements to build a product with LLMs, please see Theory’s series on the topic here called From Model to Machine.

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Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 8, 2019

Which sectors see more startup company formation than others? Artificial Intelligence - yes, it’s a buzzword but it’s more than that. Artificial Intelligence - yes, it’s a buzzword but it’s more than that. Eight years ago, there were nearly zero AI startups seeded. Hot Spaces.

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Artificial Intelligence Startup Blockchain Social Media 280

How To Buy Saas

MAY 27, 2025

Artificial intelligence is everywhere from smart content generators to coding assistants and its changing how SaaS products are built and marketed. Terms like Large Language Model (LLM) and AI tool often get tossed around interchangeably, but they arent the same thing. and What is LLM orchestration?.

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SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2025

And it’s being driven by one primary factor: artificial intelligence. The AI Platform Play That Actually Works Here’s what Palantir figured out that many others missed: AI isn’t just about models—it’s about operationalizing intelligence at enterprise scale. The numbers tell the story: U.S.

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Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 22, 2018

It’s easy to believe that machine learning is hard. After all, you’re teaching machines that work in ones and zeros to reach their own conclusions about the world. Indeed, the majority of literature on machine learning is riddled with complex notation, formulae and superfluous language.

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Tom Tunguz

MARCH 6, 2023

As machine learning becomes core to every product, engineering teams will restructure. In the past, the core engineering team & the data science/machine learning teams worked separately. LLM-features should contribute directly to revenue via upsell & market share, quieting questions.

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SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2025

But perhaps more impressive than these numbers is how Co-Founder and CTO Arvind Nithrakashyap has positioned the company at the intersection of two of enterprise software’s most critical trends: cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. “There was an early-stage customer—a law firm at 4 PM—that had an email system issue.

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SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2023

At SaaStr Europa, UiPath’s Dines shared five insights from growing a company from nothing, so other founders can learn what it takes to scale a SaaS startup to $1B+ ARR. Ten years ago, no one would have guessed Europe would generate the largest software IPO globally, yet UiPath has done it, and net retention is 144%.

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Unbounce

JUNE 24, 2020

No incoming martech makes a better case for this sort of incremental innovation than artificial intelligence. Marketing and AI: A “Meet Cute” For marketers interested in learning what AI can do for them, right now , debates and philosophy about artificial intelligence can be heady stuff.

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SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2025

And come meet Rippling and learn its secrets to building compound products when their VP of Product Anique Drumright joins us on-stage at 2025 Annual ! ” Compound startups can navigate to these opportunities precisely because others won’t venture there. ” The compound startup alternative?

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Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2023

A product manager today faces a key architectural question with AI : to use a small language model or a large language model? the company would prefer to rely on external experts to drive innovation within the models. the company would prefer to rely on external experts to drive innovation within the models.

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Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Relative to other infrastructure costs, these fees can be significant & understanding the gross-margin impact of this new layer of software will be essential, & will likely push startups from the more expensive larger models to more capital-efficient AI over time.

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How To Buy Saas

MAY 29, 2025

The generative AI revolution has driven explosive growth in Large Language Model (LLM) applications. more efficiently, developers rely on LLM orchestration frameworks. What Is an LLM Orchestration Framework? This Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pattern enhances accuracy on private or large documents.

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SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2025

Dear SaaStr: How Much of a Threat is AI to Traditional B2B Startups Today? Workday is seeing a 30% attach rate for its new AI products in new deals already: 5 Interesting Learnings From Workday at $9 Billion in ARR And AI is the core focus of Salesforce today: WSJ says Agentforce filling jobs faster. In fact, they are embracing it.

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Tom Tunguz

JUNE 19, 2017

With machine learning, we may see another evolution of this. Machine learning startups create models based on data provided by customers. Unlike the first wave of SaaS software, machine learning startups benefit from the data their customers share with them.

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Tom Tunguz

JULY 10, 2023

Large language models enable fracking of documents. But LLMs do this beautifully, pumping value from one of the hardest places to mine. We have a collection of thousands of notes researching startups. We are tinkering with deploying large language models on top of them.

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SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2025

from startup to enterprise AI player. built their own Large Language Model specifically for conversations. Here’s the fascinating part: while everyone else was rushing to build on top of OpenAI’s APIs, Sam and his team took the harder path of building their own AI infrastructure.

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Tom Tunguz

APRIL 18, 2023

Every startup needs an AI strategy - not just for fundraising or press appeal. Every company will be an AI company. User expectations have changed. When one email composer window autocompletes sentences, every email product will need to follow. Newer businesses will pursue the third as a competitive advantage as they reimagine workflows.

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SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2023

At SaaStr Annual , he was joined by Jordan Tigani, Founder and CEO of Mother Duck Maggie Hott, GTM at OpenAI , and Sharon Zhou, Co-Founder and CEO of Lamini to discuss the new architecture for building Software-as-a-Service applications with data and machine learning at their core. You can no longer ask a million discovery questions.

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SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2024

AI in B2B SaaS: The Incumbent Advantage On the AI revolution in B2B software, it’s the age-old ‘startups are innovating and racing to get distribution, and the bigger companies have distribution and are racing to innovate.’ ’ The twist this time is the data is very hard for startups to acquire or accumulate.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2024

With AI, the landscape is changing so rapidly, and there are so many options, so customers can compare everything available against the latest and greatest LLMS to find what works best for them. For startups like EvenUp and Abridge, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model that meets industry needs.

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Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 26, 2017

Over the last seven years, software startup investing has changed quite a bit. In 2010, classic SaaS was booming, the benefits of a subscription model were finally becoming clear to the public markets and the mass-market. If those startups raised twice the amount of capital then the figure would be 2.

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SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2024

Is Generative AI going to be transformative or incremental for your startup? Do you want to build your own LLM and build it in-house? The beauty of startups is you’re agile, and with LLMs, it’s language-driven. So, as a startup, you need to think deeply about the customer experience and what GenAI can do for you.

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SaaStr

MAY 27, 2025

Lemkin (@jasonlk) May 27, 2025 10 Unexpected Learnings from SVB’s 2025 State of the Markets Report Beyond the AI boom headlines, the 1H’25 data reveals surprising shifts that could reshape how we think about venture capital, startup operations, and the innovation economy. Companies are reaching the end of their options.

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SaaStock

MARCH 26, 2019

We had a closer look at who the young upstarts of Latin America are in search of the most exciting Latin American SaaS startups. With them in mind, we have created our Startup Program , tailored especially for SaaS startups. Here are the most exciting Latin American SaaS startups that we cannot wait to meet in less than a month.

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Tom Tunguz

MAY 8, 2024

When a person asks a question of an LLM, the LLM responds. Depending on the model or the question, it could be a 10% chance or 20% or much higher. In this chart, the arrow out of the LLM represents a correct answer. Today, when we use LLMs, most of the time a human checks the output after every step.

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Tom Tunguz

JUNE 25, 2023

Perhaps not coincidentally, Snowflake announced a deepened partnership with Nvidia to offer customers models & training on Nvidia’s Nemo platform. Most major cloud players have picked an LLM partner & perhaps will choose multiple. Clouds are picking teams in one of the most important dislocations in software.

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SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2025

This is epic opportunity to showcase your AI Startup. If you’re building the next AI breakthrough in SaaS, pitch your startup at the MayfieldAI AI Demo Stage at SaaStr. That’s right. Selected founders will demo their innovation to leading SaaS CEOs, founders, and investors at SaaStr Annual (May 13-15, SF Bay Area ).

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Tom Tunguz

JULY 24, 2024

Then we began to add routers, mixtures of experts, & small language models. Now we’re realizing the LLM architecture isn’t the best at planning work : reinforcement learning is better & must be integrated. OpenAI announced free fine-tuning for models to entice customers to use their platform.

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Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Spot AI builds an artificially intelligent camera system that stores video, analyzes it, and enables collaboration across a team. Legacy player Hikvision is worth $80B+ and there are unicorn startups including Verkada valued in the billions. Spot AI enables simple access to insight from video. Plus, it’s plug and play.

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SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2024

With everything in AI moving so rapidly, what’s the best way to price Artificial Intelligence products or SaaS tools with custom AI features and integrations? If you’re a full stack or model company, there’s the cost of training, pre-training, re-training, the cost of the data itself, and curating that data.

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SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2025

Companies can focus on qualitative approaches with a diverse range of customers – from startups to enterprises – to identify common threads and implement solutions that address universal needs. This approach doesn’t require a massive customer base. ” This approach requires vision and conviction.

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TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 24, 2023

At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. What are your key Startup Metrics ? eCommerce Does your startup run on a subscription model? Artificial Intelligence Does your application leverage AI in any way?

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SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

An acquisition can make or break your startup. At worst, a disastrous deal leads to wasted wasted time and money, a startup’s two most precious resources. When Yahoo was about to buy my first startup, Dialpad Communications, we met surprising resistance from an unlikely source.

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SaaStr

MAY 9, 2025

Register at meetavc.com before the event to get your startup in front of VCs. Top 5 AI Sessions Not to Miss The AI Summit is central to SaaStr 2025, these five sessions stand out as must-attend for anyone looking to understand how artificial intelligence is reshaping the SaaS landscape.

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SaaStr

MARCH 2, 2024

Ollama , which allows me to run open-source large language models locally on my computer. #3. Job is a sought-after presenter, speaking on topics related to scaling a remote-first startup, remote culture, and the future of work. What’s the number one top new app you’ve added the past year?

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