SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What is The Biggest Difference Between Running a 10 Person Startup and a 100 Person Startup? The biggest structural difference is you have to hire all the VPs by employee 50–100. You won’t be able to scale this far without a full management team — VPs of Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Customer Success at least. But the toughest personal challenge for many CEOs is letting go.

Sales Hiring 288

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Scaling 288

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

Last week, Databricks announced their Series I financing at $43b. At the same time, they released quarterly figures similar to a public company’s reporting. Those numbers provide the first public view into one of the most valuable private companies in the world. It’s also an opportunity to compare Databricks to Snowflake. Two mammoths competing for customers’ workloads offer different architectures.

Business 293

Business Cloud Finance AI 293

For Entrepreneurs with David Skok

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

A decade ago my partner (and SaaS legend) David Skok wrote about “Time to Wow!” – which helped you highlight how powerful it can be when the buyer experiences a Wow! moment, when they fully see the value of your … The post Permissionless Pilots – the fastest way to Wow! appeared first on For Entrepreneurs.

SaaS 265

SaaS Growth Hacking Startup Marketing 265

The Daily Egg

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

If you use WooCommerce to run your online store, you need quality tools to take your business to the next level. That’s. The post StoreApps Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Business 276

Business 276

Advertisement

Generative AI is upending the way product developers & end-users alike are interacting with data. Despite the potential of AI, many are left with questions about the future of product development: How will AI impact my business and contribute to its success? What can product managers and developers expect in the future with the widespread adoption of AI?

Generative AI

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Rates Keep Going Up Rates continue to push higher, as the aftershock of the Fed’s “Higher for Longer!!” messaging reverberates through the markets. Yesterday the 10Y hit 4.7% which was up from it’s high of ~4.5% last week.

Cloud 183

Cloud Government Banking Software Review 183

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

Dear SaaStr: We Don’t Need It. Should We Go After Venture Capital, and When? There are only two reasons to raise Venture Capital: You need it. If the only way you can get to the next level is to raise capital, then do it. I needed to for both my start-ups, up to a point, for different reasons. Whatever the dilution, cost, headaches — if you need VC to thrive, and you can raise it, then raise it.

Venture Capital 307

Venture Capital Investment Leadership 307

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Historically, software-as-a-service (SaaS) has been built on databases with structured data, as you might find in an Excel spreadsheet. But the ability of large language models to extract insights from unstructured information changes this architecture : data repositories like data lakes are becoming essential parts of modern SaaS stacks. For example, next generation marketing software might ingest structured data from Google Analytics and lead capture software as before.

Artificial Intelligence 293

Artificial Intelligence Software Data Scale 293

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

It’s been 9 months since ChatGPT was released and 7 months since it became the fastest consumer application to reach 100 million monthly active users , ushering in a new era of generative AI. But other than ChatGPT, how are consumers interacting with generative AI (GenAI) products? In which categories do incumbents dominate—and where are new companies breaking out?

Generative AI 145

Generative AI AI ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence 145

The Daily Egg

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

The times, they are a-changing, and so are work schedules. As a result, a lot of business owners are having trouble keeping. The post ClickTime Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Business 276

Business 276

Advertisement

Discover how top SaaS companies are earning up to $700k + and zero upfront cost with Usio Integrated Payments.

Payments

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Are Software Companies Over or Undervalued? Today I wanted to dig in to this question and its implications: “Are software companies fairly valued today?” Every week I post a number of charts and tables, but the most popular chart shows the software universe’s median revenue multiple, the long term average, and the 10Y (below).

Software Review 183

Software Review Cloud Software Revenue 183

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

On Tuesday, Sept. 6, a tentative settlement was reached in a class action lawsuit brought by 37 U.S. states against Alphabet’s Google. Here are some key details about the case and what it could mean for businesses that sell a digital product via Google’s U.S. Play Store. What is the Google antitrust lawsuit about? In Utah v. Google , 37 attorneys general maintain that Google uses illegal, anticompetitive, and/or unfair business practices that restrict competition, drive up prices, and limit choi

Payment Methods 129

Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments Merchant Services 129

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

So tougher times aren’t over for everyone that has had them. But we’re lapping tougher times for many, and for many others, it’s just plain time to hire again. So many Cloud and SaaS leaders kept hiring flat for the past 12-18 months, and yet still grew. That works for a while, but you end up with not enough headcount if you do freeze hiring but still want to grow.

Sales Hiring 305

Sales Hiring Headcount Scale Cloud 305

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Last week at Saastr 2023, I had the privilege of hosting a panel with Maggie Hott , GTM leader at OpenAI, Sharon Zhou , cofounder & CEO of Lamini, & Jordan Tigani , founder & CEO of MotherDuck talking about the implications of AI for the software industry broadly. Four themes resonated throughout the session. First, large language models like GPT-3 are making AI accessible to the masses.

AI 282

AI Artificial Intelligence Technical Cofounder Education 282

Speaker: Timothy Chan, PhD., Head of Data Science

Are you ready to move beyond the basics and take a deep dive into the cutting-edge techniques that are reshaping the landscape of experimentation? 🌐 From Sequential Testing to Multi-Armed Bandits, Switchback Experiments to Stratified Sampling, Timothy Chan, Data Science Lead, is here to unravel the mysteries of these powerful methodologies that are revolutionizing how we approach testing.

Innovation

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

The foundation models we use today aren’t just beating humans at Jeopardy, or playing Go at a supernatural level, or powering better recommendation engines—they’re changing and creating new user behavior across art, design, games, medicine, coding, and even human relationships. And the broad impact of this wave of AI is already creating the sort of massive value we’ve seen with other platform shifts, like the internet, mobile, cloud.

Artificial Intelligence 141

Artificial Intelligence AI Scale ChatGPT 141

The Daily Egg

SEPTEMBER 23, 2023

For this software, you’re going to need two things: one, be an online coach, trainer, or course creator, and two, know how. The post AccessAlly Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Software Review 268

Software Review Software 268

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Q2 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. The 62 companies that I’ll discuss here (which is not an exhaustive list, but is still comprehensive) all reported quarterly earnings sometime between July 27th – September 8th. In this post, I’ll take a data-driven approach in evaluating the overall group’s performance, and highlight individual standouts along the way.

Cloud 169

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 169

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Having a strong LinkedIn game is no longer an option. What we’re witnessing in today’s tough economy is the inevitable rise of social selling. This trend leverages social media platforms to build connections and establish meaningful relationships with potential business prospects — and when it comes to social selling, LinkedIn is the MVP.

Sales Recruiting 128

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 128

Advertisement

Explore how integrated payment strategies impact investor and buyer evaluations. Payments are more than a feature — they’re a key to long-term success and market differentiation. They help SaaS companies offer seamless user experiences and efficient operations. Investors and strategic buyers assess these integrated payment strategies as a measure of a company's growth potential and sustainability.

Payments

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

So I’ve been doing SaaS for a while, and the costs of doing business have just gone up. Inflation is everywhere. Salaries have gone up. Marketing expenses have gone up. And expectations for OTE have gone way up. The net effect I see this happening today is a squeeze in U.S.-based SMB sales positions. SaaS sales execs with even a little bit of experience at other SaaS companies are looking for higher and higher OTEs, often with lower effective attainment and high support costs.

SMB 290

SMB Scale Sales Hiring Sales 290

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

I recently stumbled across a book that profoundly impacted me over 20 years ago. Called the Art of Possibility by Rosemary Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, there it was in the sharing library of a local cafe, nestled underneath a few spy novels. There it was the bright yellow cover, a banner of optimism contained within the pages.

Management 249

Management Business 249

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Investing in Instacart was perhaps the hardest decision I had to make as a venture capitalist. It was April 2014, and the company was raising its Series B. And by the time we saw the pitch, they already had multiple term sheets. We pulled from my prior marketplaces experience and dove into their business quickly to develop a point-of-view on the opportunity.

Marketplace as a Service 142

Marketplace as a Service Scale Underperforming Technical Team Construction 142

The Daily Egg

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

If you are struggling to achieve your marketing goals because of difficulties keeping everyone involved in content creation on the same page, The post How To Use Pepper Content appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Marketing 269

Marketing Business 269

As companies strive to boost revenue, deliver customer value, and stay competitive, they are increasingly embracing the potential of usage-based pricing.

Pricing

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

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 Recap Preview We’re now through Q2 earnings season! I’ll post a much longer recap soon, but today I wanted to post the highlights. Overall, I’d describe Q2 as “Buying environment didn’t get worse, but we’re not out of the woods yet.” We saw some green shoots in AWS and a few other consumption names, and overal

Cloud 169

Cloud Software Review AWS Trends 169

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, or X as it’s now called, a number of new social media apps have either come into the limelight or been developed to capture the users that have been leaving. Although the flood of users leaving has slowed to a trickle with several new initiatives from the platform, several Twitter alternatives have been developed.

Social Media 125

Social Media Underperforming Technical Team Scale User Experience 125

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

How is AI going to impact the software and SaaS landscape of the next couple of years and also the next 5-10 years? Kristina Shen, General Partner at a16z, shares some insights into the present and future of generative AI at this week’s Workshop Wednesday, held every Wednesday at 10 a.m. PST. The Most Surprising Thing About VC This Year Shen has been in venture capital for 12 years now, and it’s been a crazy ride to watch the whole bull market back in ‘10 and ‘11 when 10x revenue was insanely ex

AI 277

AI Generative AI Venture Capital SaaS 277

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

Last week, Harvard Business School released its analysis of LLMs on 758 consultants’ performance when using AI. Three key insights emerged. In the first experiment (inside AI’s capability frontier), consultants randomly assigned access to GPT-4 AI completed 12.2% more tasks on average & 25.1% faster. Quality improved by 40%. Lower performing consultants benefit the most from AI augmentation, increasing performance by 43% compared to 17% for higher performers.

AI 208

AI Artificial Intelligence Consulting Customer Support 208

Advertiser: Data Robot

The buzz around generative AI shows no sign of abating in the foreseeable future. Enterprise interest in the technology is high, and the market is expected to gain momentum as organizations move from prototypes to actual project deployments. Ultimately, the market will demand an extensive ecosystem, and tools will need to streamline data and model utilization and management across multiple environments.

Generative AI

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

In enterprise healthcare, there are many “Jobs to be Done” (JTBD) for AI. To this end, we present the first part of the 6th episode of the Digital Health Go-to-Market Playbook series –Commercializing AI in Healthcare. This piece, Part A, uses Clay Christensen’s Jobs to be Done lens, along with an assessment of viable product wedges and business models, to share what we see as the most promising applications of AI in enterprise healthcare.

Healthcare 142

Healthcare AI Artificial Intelligence Payment Solutions 142

The Daily Egg

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

If you’re worried that massive tech conglomerates are spying on your data and using your information for world domination, then this software. The post Internxt Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Technical Review 266

Technical Review Software Review Software Data 266

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Rates! Rates! Rates! This week was quite interesting. We had the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, and it wasn’t a surprise that the Fed did not hike rates any further. However, we saw the 10Y spike to 4.5%. This continues a trend from April that has seen the 10Y steadily rise from 3.3% to 4.5%.

Cloud 152

Cloud Revenue Software Metrics 152