March, 2023

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It’s Now Year 2 of the Venture Downturn

SaaStr

Here's the thing about venture right now Seed stage remains vibrant, similar to any of past 5-6 years Series A and later has gotten over 2021, and is back in market … but … Has moved back to Default No Pacing is far slower because of it — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) March 19, 2023 So folks in venture are back to business. 2022 was a year of dealing with the fallout of fallen unicorns, terrible deals, and slashed valuations.

SaaS 323
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The Typical Startup Saw a 24% Increase in Sales Cycle in 2023

Tom Tunguz

Sales cycles shifted dramatically in 2023. Slower sales cycles create pipeline shocks & startups are feeling the impacts. The average startup saw a 24% increase in sales cycle from early 2022 to 2023. 60 day sales cycles are now 75 days. But the latency isn’t evenly distributed. Startups selling to enterprises have increased 36%, twice those of Mid-Market & SMB focused companies.

Startup 296
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Poor Sales? Maybe You Need a Website Redesign: Here’s How

The Daily Egg

Neil Patel co-founded Crazy Egg in 2005. 300,000 websites use Crazy Egg to understand what’s working on their website (with features like. The post Poor Sales? Maybe You Need a Website Redesign: Here’s How appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Sales 319
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The Importance of Clean Data When Prospecting

Predictable Revenue

Jake Biskar joins the Monthly Meta Podcast to discuss the importance of clean data when prospecting and tips for better email outreach. The post The Importance of Clean Data When Prospecting appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Data 241
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The Executive Guide to Generative AI

Generative AI is taking the world by storm, but the questions that all CEOs, data leaders, and AI leaders are being asked are: What are we going to do about it, and what is our plan? The business and creative possibilities are practically limitless with generative AI. From productivity gains to finding new routes to revenue generation, generative AI is going to radically transform how we work.

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To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane

Buffer Resources

What do creators like Mr. Beast and Ali Abdaal have in common? Not much, actually, other than the ‘Creator’ label and being YouTubers. They serve distinctly different audiences and create very different types of content. However, no matter how you look at it, they’re both pretty successful in their own rights. For content creators , one of the biggest debates is whether or not to "niche down" and focus on a specific topic or audience.

Strategy 121

More Trending

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How to Use Customer Journey Map to Boost Sales Team’s Performance

CloseSaaS

Customers nowadays prefer to go with businesses with great customer experience. This post covers how to use a customer journey map to create the best CX.

Sales 105
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Embedded Payments vs. Integrated Payments. What’s the Difference?

Infinicept

As the idea of delivering payments through software platforms has picked up steam, the options available to companies that want to create that experience have evolved rapidly to meet the demand. That means that new models and terms have arisen quickly. Keeping up with the developing space can be confusing. Take the terms Integrated payments and embedded payments.

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How to Run Facebook Ads That Convert

Neil Patel

Getting traffic is easy with ad copy. Improving your conversion rates? Not so much. Boosting your click-through rate requires improving ad copy and laser-targeting it to your audience. However, with so many online options, where do you go to find potential leads? These days, if you’re looking for one of the best platforms to reach your customers, then Facebook could be your answer.

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11 Customer Success statistics, quips and quotes on investing in these teams

ChurnZero

The purpose of a Customer Success team is to help a company’s customers get the most value out of its product. The hypothesis is, if a customer maximizes the obtainable value, they will remain loyal and spend more with the company. This isn’t merely a theory. Case studies have shown loyal customers spend more— up to six times more —over the customer lifetime.

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Top Fraud and Payment Trends for 2023: What SaaS Pros Need to Know

Fraud is ever changing – especially for merchants that offer online services and subscriptions. This report outlines the most common types of fraud to look out for in 2023 and offers merchant-reported preferred best practices to help minimize fraud losses. In the report, you’ll find: The scale and type of fraud seen in the global marketplace. How fraud changes based on the size of business.

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Dear SaaStr: What Is a Typical Organizational Structure for a SaaS Startup With Sales Reps?

SaaStr

A rough structure from 1–25 sales reps: Early days: CEO acts as VP of Sales. CEO hires 2 reps, in the beginning, each barely pays for themselves, but by months 4–6 they are able to close 3x or more of their total compensation. Once 2+ reps can do 3x-5x their comp, the model gets pretty efficient. Sometimes, a CEO enjoys outbound (or at least is decent at it) and hires 1-2 or more SDRs themself and directly manages them.

SaaS 308
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What Is a Good Conversion Rate? The Answer Might Surprise You

The Daily Egg

What is a good conversion rate for your online business? And how do your company’s conversion rates stack up against the competition? The post What Is a Good Conversion Rate? The Answer Might Surprise You appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Business 305
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The Hardest Round to Raise in 2023

Tom Tunguz

The hardest round to raise so far in 2023 is the Series B. Although, all the early & mid-stage rounds have fallen to levels not seen for 5-10 years. Q1 volumes by year show broad declines across early-stage venture capital. Seeds peaked at 1500 in Q1 of 2020 falling to 155 in Q1 of 2023. Seeds fell 64%; As 68%; Bs 86% & Cs 80% of last year’s round counts.

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Clouded Judgement 3.10.23

Clouded Judgement

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Consumption Chart Last week I talked a bit about consumption trends. Came across an interesting chart I wanted to share. Growth Deceleration of Consumption Companies So far, 2023 guides have not been pretty for consumption software companies.

Cloud 244
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The Hidden Costs of Poor Customer Onboarding

Churn starts within the first 30 days of customers purchasing a product. A lot of it comes down to the first impression customers get through the onboarding process. A poor experience can result in losing current and future customers, and unnecessary overhead. It’s important to know what a poor onboarding experience looks like, the associated hidden costs, and how to build a top-tier onboarding experience for your customers so you can avoid losing hard-earned revenue.

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Prospecting with Purpose: Navigating Challenges and Building Relationships

Predictable Revenue

Joey Williams joins Collin Stewart on the Predictable Revenue podcast to discuss prospecting with purpose and how to improve your sales development process. The post Prospecting with Purpose: Navigating Challenges and Building Relationships appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Revenue 223
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For B2B Generative AI Apps, Is Less More?

Andreessen Horowitz

We’ve watched large language models (LLMs) become mainstream over the past few years and have studied the implementations in the context of B2B applications. Despite some enormous technological advances and the presence of LLMs in the general zeitgeist, we believe … The post For B2B Generative AI Apps, Is Less More? appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

B2B 141
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10 of My Top Seed Investing Mistakes

SaaStr

Q: What are some common mistakes that investors make when evaluating potential startup investments (such as Seed or Series A)? A few I’ve made and watched others around me make: Invest in good traction with a pretty good but not great CEO. A so-so CEO with good traction usually … ends up not scaling to something all that big. The market changes, competition changes, etc., and the good-but-not-great CEO can’t keep up.

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Smartsheet vs. Wrike

The Daily Egg

Smartsheet and Wrike both provide robust project management tools but with unique functionalities that make them suited to different types of businesses. The post Smartsheet vs. Wrike appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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ChatGPT for SEO: the comprehensive guide

When I saw chatgpt is extremely powerful, I decided to make a comprehensive guide covering start to end. this means keyword research to link building.

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Usage as the Moat in AI

Tom Tunguz

As generative AI captivates Startupland, startups will do what they have always done: integrate new technology to build transformative businesses. Incumbents have seized the moment with Microsoft, Adobe, & others integrating generative AI into their products quickest. In response, startups must develop moats to stake out their market. What are these moats?

AI 279
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The Simplest Way to Produce Popular Content

Neil Patel

Have you noticed that no matter how well-written your content is, it’s hard to get views? Or even if you create video, audio, or image-based content it’s tough to get likes, shares, and engagement. Most marketers believe it is because there is so much content for people to choose from. In other words, why should someone read yours? And the stats do tell that story ( 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each day ), but it’s simpler than that.

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Microsoft customers locked out of Azure and M365 services due to geolocation error

IT World

Some Microsoft customers were unable to access the company’s Azure and Microsoft 365 services on Thursday due to an issue with Microsoft’s geolocation services. Just after 12 p.m. GMT, the Microsoft 365 Status Twitter account posted a tweet alerting customers to the fact that it was “investigating an issue where users with specific conditional access policies applied may be unable to access any Microsoft 365 service,” adding that Microsoft was attempting to reverse a recent change in order to m

Azure 139
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The Generative AI Revolution will Enable Anyone to Create Games

Andreessen Horowitz

As the Generative AI Revolution in Games progresses, it will completely reshape User Generated Content (UGC) creating a world where anyone can build games and expanding the games market beyond what many thought was possible. In the coming years, deep … The post The Generative AI Revolution will Enable Anyone to Create Games appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

AI 140
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The Path to Payment Control: How SaaS Companies Can Maximize Enterprise Value

For software company executives, maximizing revenue, profitability, and enterprise value is of utmost importance. A key factor in achieving these goals is having a solid integrated payment strategy in place — one that allows for control, ownership, and leverage over customer relationships and payment service contracts.

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8 Things That Are Just Harder in SaaS Now

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: What’s Changed in SaaS Today? What’s Harder Now? My list: You have to go twice as far on each dollar of venture capital as in 2021. With public market valuations down 70%+ from their peaks, for startups, that means going twice as far on each dollar. It’s 3x-5x harder to raise a Series A, and 4x-10x harder to raise a Series B, C or D, than it was at the peak.

SaaS 303
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Asana vs. Smartsheet

The Daily Egg

Asana and Smartsheet have many of the same strengths, including vast customizability and an array of templates to help you get started. The post Asana vs. Smartsheet appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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Metrics That Matter in 2023: My KiwiSaaS Presentation Slides

Kellblog

Just a quick post to share the slides from the presentation I gave today at the KiwiSaaS conference to discuss the SaaS metrics that matter in 2023 and 2024. The presentation has three sections: First, an introduction which quickly reviews the ways the startup world has changed in the past 6 months. Simply put: Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in 2021 anymore.

Metrics 128
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3-Step Guide: How to Create Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Sales Hacker

Building an outbound sales strategy can be challenging. The best place to start? Your ideal customer profile (ICP). Define exactly who you’re selling to, and you’ve got a solid foundation for growth. And that’s just what the ICP does. Keep reading for an in-depth guide on creating your ideal customer profile, including an ideal customer profile template, how to identify your ideal customer, and a simple three-step process for creating an ideal customer profile.

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SaaS & Embedded Finance: From 101 to $1 Trillion

Speaker: Simon Torrance, Embedded Finance Expert & Advisor

Our guest on this podcast is Simon Torrance. Simon is a globally recognized expert in the field of embedded finance, and he currently serves as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Digital Platforms & Ecosystems working group. Simon and Todd Ablowitz (Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Infinicept) talk about the basic principles of embedded finance, why this market is a trillion-dollar opportunity and the key challenges that companies face in capturing that opportunity.

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How Microsoft became tech’s top dog again

IT World

Few companies have experienced the ups and downs of the nearly 50-year-old Microsoft. It helped launch the PC revolution in the 1970s and became a colossus of the tech world in the 1980s and 1990s, essentially setting the tech world’s agenda. Then after a federal anti-trust suit and CEO Steve Ballmer’s poor leadership, the company fell into a tailspin and lost its tech luster during a “lost decade” that began in 2000.

Cloud 138
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Space: A Market Map

Andreessen Horowitz

In “The Space Age” , I wrote about the importance of mankind extending our reach into the stars. Moreover, I suggested that America is — and should remain — the leader in this endeavor. It was, in many ways, an … The post Space: A Market Map appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Marketing 128
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Where Did Startups Put Their SVB Cash? At JP Morgan Chase

SaaStr

SVB failing was a stunning moment in the history of startups. Stunning,m and I think, actually still underdiscussed. As SVB’s situation appeared to be deteriorating, I thought based on ‘08-‘09 they might get acquired, or back stopped, or bailed out in some fashion. I never thought on a Friday morning I’d see a tweet the bank had been shut. A bank.

Startup 284