August, 2023

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Mean Reversion: When Will Startup Investing Return to Normal?

Tom Tunguz

The post-Covid surge in venture capital pushed valuations & activity to record breaking heights. Since then, investing activity dropped precipitously. When a collapse follows a surge, mean reversion suggests behavior should revert to a reasonable baseline. By building a linear model we can hazard a guess of when that might be. The blue line shows actual Seed, A, & B activity by quarter.

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The Power of Private Equity and a $1 Billion+ “Double Acquisiton”

SaaStr

Huge congrats to @iDedupe + @elasticull and team @logikcull !! Proud to have been the first venture investor!! [link] — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  (@jasonlk) August 29, 2023 I was lucky enough to be the first venture investor in a next-gneration ediscovery startup, Logikcull, way back in 2015. A flash-back to them at $1m ARR or so here: Andy Wilson CEO has been part of SaaStr events and contents since then, and a great session below on how they scale, and a great post here on how they migr

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Clouded Judgement 8.18.23 - Economy Update + Q2 Earnings Check In

Clouded Judgement

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Q2 Earnings Check In We’re now about halfway through Q2 earnings season (companies with June quarter ends have reported, and we’ll get companies with July quarter ends reporting next week). I wanted to do a quick review of results so far to see what the data is showing us.

Cloud 243
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Supporting the Open Source AI Community

Andreessen Horowitz

We believe artificial intelligence has the power to save the world —and that a thriving open source ecosystem is essential to building this future. Thankfully, the open source ecosystem is starting to develop, and we are now seeing open source … The post Supporting the Open Source AI Community appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

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The Next Evolution in Subscriptions and Recurring Payments

Rise to the next level of recurring revenue. Discover how recurring payments are reshaping industries beyond simple subscriptions, driving a $1.5 trillion market. Learn the crucial strategies for building scalable, secure, and seamless recurring payment infrastructure to boost customer retention and fuel growth.

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Come to my SaaStr Annual Presentation: The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics

Kellblog

I’m excited to say that I’ll be speaking at SaaStr Annual 2023 as part of amazing speaker line up. The event runs from September 6th to 8th and will be held at the San Mateo County Event Center. While SaaStr works hard to keep things fresh by limiting repeat speakers, I’m proud to say that I was invited back this year as a fan favorite.

Metrics 120

More Trending

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Product Drive 2023 – How to Build Products Users Love

User Pilot

It’s 2023, and customers have options. This makes it more important than ever to create products people actually want to use. But how do you do that? What strategies can you implement to drive acquisition and retention faster? How do you ensure your team doesn’t lose momentum along the way? The expert speakers at Product Drive 2023 will answer these and many more questions.

Scale 105
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13 Consulting Experts Share Their Top Tech Tools & Lessons Learned

Nimble - Sales

Navigating the constantly evolving landscape of the consulting industry presents its challenges, often requiring professionals to stay attuned to the latest insights and strategies. Along this journey, consultants inevitably encounter obstacles that prompt them to explore innovative solutions, including the incorporation of modern technologies like specialized apps.

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10 formas comprobadas de generar ingresos pasivos en 2023

Entrepreneur - SaaS

Desde iniciar un negocio en línea hasta publicar un e-book, estas son ideas inteligentes con las que puedes empezar a generar ingresos pasivos.

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Intern returns to Zuora for second year of learning

Zuora

Interning at Zuora requires more than just busy work or isolated project groups—that sounds like course work in the workplace, […] The post Intern returns to Zuora for second year of learning appeared first on Zuora.

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Struggling to Scale Test Coverage Under Pressure?

When test coverage falls behind release velocity, quality suffers, and your team feels the consequences. This guide outlines when it makes sense to outsource quality assurance (QA), the risks to watch for, and how to scale testing without increasing headcount or slowing down engineering. You will learn how leading teams are leveraging external QA partners to expand coverage, enhance defect detection, and remain aligned with CI/CD timelines.

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Technical Review: A Trusted Look Under the Hood

TechEmpower SaaS

Many CEOs of software-enabled businesses call us with a similar concern: Are we getting the right results from our software team? Most innovators don’t have a technical background, so it’s hard to evaluate the truth of the situation. We hear them explain that their current software development is expensive, deliveries are rarely on time, and random bugs appear.

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Dear SaaStr: As a CEO, Who is The Most Talented Founder You Have Ever Met?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: As a CEO, Who is The Most Talented Founder You Have Ever Met? A few of the most talented I’ve ever met. Ok, let me qualify this by saying earlier in my career. As part of SaaStr, I meet so many incredible founders from HubSpot to Monday to Slack and more that I can’t count those, for the most part. So I’m excluded the CEOs and founders, for the most part, that I’ve met though SaaStr itself as there are too many great ones.

Startup 283
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Drip Review

The Daily Egg

Drip is more than just the sound of a leaky sink or a slang term for your freshest outfit—it’s also an email. The post Drip Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Marketing 264
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The Dawn of AI : Pricing Power & Profits in NVidia's Business

Tom Tunguz

If we needed another exclamation point on the tremendous growth opportunity, NVidia’s earnings punctuated the euphoria with gusto. Revenue grew 88% in a quarter, nearly doubling. The company had projected $11b & exceeded projections by $2.5b or 26%. The Data Center business, which sells to clouds & consumer companies drove nearly all of the growth, surging 141% quarter-over-quarter to $10.3b & nearly 3x annually.

Pricing 246
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How to Achieve High-Accuracy Results When Using LLMs

Speaker: Ben Epstein, Stealth Founder & CTO | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO, Aggregage

When tasked with building a fundamentally new product line with deeper insights than previously achievable for a high-value client, Ben Epstein and his team faced a significant challenge: how to harness LLMs to produce consistent, high-accuracy outputs at scale. In this new session, Ben will share how he and his team engineered a system (based on proven software engineering approaches) that employs reproducible test variations (via temperature 0 and fixed seeds), and enables non-LLM evaluation m

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Klaviyo: Benchmarking the S-1 Data

Clouded Judgement

Klaviyo filed their initial S1 statement today. This is the first S-1 we’ve seen in almost 2 years from a software company! A S-1 is a document companies file with the SEC in preparation for listing their shares on an exchange like the NYSE or NASDAQ. The document contains a plethora of information on the company including a general overview, up to date financials, risk factors to the business, cap table highlights and much more.

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Why TestDome Considers FastSpring a Real Partner for Selling Software Online (Plus: Is Using AI Cheating?)

FastSpring

When TestDome was created, CEO and co-founder Mario Zivic knew the pre-employment testing software company wouldn’t be able to rely on domestic sales to succeed. “As a startup with only two or three people, it would be absolutely impossible to go international without this kind of platform.” Since choosing FastSpring as their merchant of record provider, TestDome has seen a lot — including steady growth around 30-40% per year pre-pandemic, hiring market fluctuations in the last few years, and in

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Startup CTO or Developer

TechEmpower SaaS

What does it mean to be a CTO for a startup? What does the role demand? Should a startup CTO spend their time programming? Exploring new technologies? Increasing competitive advantage? The answer is: it depends. The role of a CTO varies as the company matures. Here’s a graphic from Socal CTO that illustrates the roles as they change over time: In its earliest days, a startup’s top need is often to produce a product.

CTO Hire 390
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Dear SaaStr: How Does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: How does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires? How do you hire a great CTO, a great VP of Product, a great VP of Sales … if you’ve never worked with one? It’s hard. There’s a reason almost every founder you talk to had a mis-hire for their first head of sales. Because they didn’t really know who a 10x hire would be, at that stage, back then.

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Signal-Based Selling: How to Leverage 4 Key Buying Signals

As prospects define their problem, search for solutions, and even change jobs, they are generating high-value signals that the best go-to-market teams can leverage to close more deals. This is where signal-based selling comes into play. ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck recently broke down specific ways to put four key buying signals into action with the experts from 30 Minutes to President’s Club.

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Taggbox Review

The Daily Egg

Influencer marketing has become a powerhouse. People trust people. When we see someone just like us (or someone we aspire to be). The post Taggbox Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Marketing 246
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Busting the Myth: Higher Funding Doesn't Mean Faster Hiring in Startups

Tom Tunguz

If a startup raised a top quartile Seed round, Series A, B, & C, they typically would have grown headcount by about 6% in the last twelve months. The headcount growth rate for all other companies? About double at 12%. Here’s the catch : the difference isn’t statistically significant. In fact, comparing the headcount growth rates across top quartile fundraisers to bottom 3 quartile fundraisers, the result is the same.

Headcount 244
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Clouded Judgement: IPO Process Overview - Are IPO Markets Opening Soon?

Clouded Judgement

A little over 3 years ago I wrote a post about the IPO process , outlining what happens at each step along the way. The post was a qualitative review of the IPO process, as well as a quantitative review benchmarking the key pieces of an IPO. The benchmarking was not a review of business metrics (I did some of that benchmarking in this post ), but rather IPO metrics.

Cloud 49
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We Analyzed Millions of ChatGPT User Sessions: Visits are Down 29% since May, Programming Assistance is 30% of Use

Sparktoro

Generative AI, and ChatGPT in particular have been catnip to the tech press, the mainstream media, and the conversations of professionals in nearly every field. How is it going to disrupt your work?! Will AI replace you? Are Hollywood writers, real estate agents, dog walkers, and anesthesiologists even useful anymore?

ChatGPT 145
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SaaS Essentials: Failed Payment Solution Guide

For SaaS businesses, improving retention is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive revenue and profits. With a clear link between failed payments and customer churn, having a robust failed payment recovery solution isn’t optional—it’s essential. Achieving your retention goals starts with the right solution.

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10 Proven Ways to Generate Passive Income in 2023

Entrepreneur - SaaS

From starting an online business to publishing an ebook, these are smart passive income ideas to help you get started.

Business 143
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Nathan Latka Hosting Bootstrapping Track at SaaStr Annual 2023 Next Week!

SaaStr

Nathan Latka of Founderpath is hosting a new bootstrapper workshop track at SaaStr Annual 2023 in our Executive Briefing Center. Anyone with a full pass can sign up through the Braindate app (the sessions are tagged as workshops / Super Braindates). Nathan is also giving out some tickets to his base as well. Next Week: 13 Bootstrappers On Stage, 9 Revenue Graphs, 18 SaaS Templates, 2 Book Signings ” We’re putting our money where our mouth is.

Revenue 274
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Userpilot Review

The Daily Egg

It’s hard enough to get potential customers to try out your SaaS product. And, even then, once users are engaged with your. The post Userpilot Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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Context.ai - Unlocking Insight into LLM-Based Applications

Tom Tunguz

Large-language models have transformed how millions interact with products : from customer support to code generation to legal document analysis. These new engagement models invite users through a meaningfully different product journey. Every application now speaks English. Understanding user behavior is essential to building great products. How should a product manager gauge the customer experience?

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Usage-Based Monetization Musts: A Roadmap for Sustainable Revenue Growth

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O'Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

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BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AI

Andreessen Horowitz

“Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. … The post BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AI appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

AI 137
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This Creator Grew to 20k+ YouTube Subscribers – Then She Started From Scratch

Buffer Resources

When Aprilynne Alter started her YouTube channel in 2021, she didn’t expect it to grow the way it did. Her content about learning how NFTs work and documenting her progress in creating them attracted an audience of more than 22,000 subscribers. In the process, she learned how to grow on YouTube and gained an appreciation for the medium. But NFTs and the broader web3 space weren’t Aprilynne’s topic of choice.

Education 132
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Beyond the Deal: The Importance of Post-Sale with Debra Senra

Predictable Revenue

Debra Senra joined the Predictable Revenue podcast to discuss changes in sales leadership over the last 18 months and her insights. The post Beyond the Deal: The Importance of Post-Sale with Debra Senra appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales 130