Sat.Apr 22, 2023 - Fri.Apr 28, 2023

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The Top Bootstrapped SaaS Companies Ever: Atlassian, Mailchimp and Qualtrics

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: What is the most inspiring bootstrapped SaaS out there? Atlassian is worth $40B today, pretty darn impressive. The founders owned 78% at IPO. Very impressive. The combo? Utterly epic pic.twitter.com/oN5vm3y4Ii — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) April 19, 2023 In SaaS, I nominate 3 for The Best Bootstrappers Ever. First, Atlassian.

SaaS 275
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Software Spending Growth Will Accelerate by 40% in 2023, But it Doesn't Feel that Way

Tom Tunguz

Software spending in 2024 should rise 12%, increasing from 9% last year according to Gartner. Overall spending will rise from $4.4t to $4.6t. Why doesn’t it feel that way? Devices will be the only category to decline. CDW, a $20b distributor of software & hardware, announced earnings last week & their results echoed these. CDW has a significant government & education business.

Software 236
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Navigating the High Cost of AI Compute

Andreessen Horowitz

Source: Midjourney The generative AI boom is compute-bound. It has the unique property that adding more compute directly results in a better product. Usually, R&D investment is more directly tied to how valuable a product was, and that relationship is … The post Navigating the High Cost of AI Compute appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

AI 142
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Communicating Your Value in a Challenging Economy with Gavin Page

Predictable Revenue

Gavin Page joins Collin Stewart on the Predictable Revenue Podcast to discuss the changes that have occurred in sales development and how to communicate your value in a challenging economy. The post Communicating Your Value in a Challenging Economy with Gavin Page appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

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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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Don’t Say Ending ARR

Kellblog

As long as the country’s in a censorship mood , I figured that I could jump on the bandwagon and propose that we ban discussion of one of my pet-peeve SaaS metrics: ending ARR. Wait, but aren’t you the guy who said that if you only knew two things about a SaaS company and needed to value it, one would be ending ARR and the other would be its growth rate?

SaaS 141

More Trending

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The Essential Guide to In-App Onboarding in 2023

User Pilot

What’s in-app onboarding? What are different onboarding types? How’s web mobile app onboarding different from web app onboarding? These are some of the questions we answer in the article. We also look at The characteristics of good onboarding, Best practices, Mistakes to avoid, Some excellent examples of its implementation, And tools you can use to deliver outstanding onboarding experiences for your users.

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New Research: Dark Social Falsely Attributes Significant Percentages of Web Traffic as “Direct”

Sparktoro

When site owners and marketers log into their analytics tools to determine how visitors discover and reach their properties, they expect accurate information. Unfortunately, that data is often massively flawed. SparkToro partnered with Really Good Data in a recent experiment to drive 1000+ visits across 11 major social networks and observe how Google Analytics categorized these referrals.

Data 131
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Capture, Categorize, Create: A System for Capturing Your Ideas and Using Them To Create Content

Buffer Resources

We’re in an era where if you are trying to create a personal brand online or share your work, you do that by creating content — and creating content is a fantastic way to build your brand, make new connections, and level up your knowledge. When you add it all up, though, it can be a lot of content to create, even with the right tools in place.

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Three ways customer success can support product management to everyone’s benefit

ChurnZero

The respective directors of the customer success team and the product team were really going at it. The meeting we were in was supposed to be a forum where the two teams could trade notes and collaborate on the product roadmap. Yet, there wasn’t a whole lot of teamwork going on—participants were simply talking past each other. Customer success would attest something like “If we don’t build this feature for this customer, they won’t renew.

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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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Hunter.io Review

The Daily Egg

Hunter.io finds email addresses to help you connect with people on your business radar. This simple yet potent tool can find contacts. The post Hunter.io Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Business 286
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How to Create Urgency in Sales. When There Really Isn’t Any.

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Create Urgency in Sales. When There Really Isn’t Any? Creating urgency is an art. Most founders are great “middlers”. They are great at explaining not just what the product does, but what it can do to solve your problems. No one is better than a founder at this. And then … the deal often never quite closes. The prospect got interested, took the call and the meeting, but … didn’t ask for a contract.

Sales 259
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Microsoft's Billion Dollar AI Business

Tom Tunguz

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early trends in the software market to inform startups’ plans for 2023. Yesterday, Microsoft & Google announced earnings. Amazon, Cloudflare, & Mongo announce later this week. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) & Microsoft Azure had strong quarters with about 28% annual revenue growth each.

AI 183
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Clouded Judgement 4.28.23

Clouded Judgement

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Hyperscalers Report - With a Massive Headfake! What. A. Week! AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Quick recap below: AWS (Amazon): $85B run rate growing 16% YoY (last Q grew 20%) Azure (Microsoft): ~$60's billion run rate (estimate) growing 31% YoY (last Q grew 38%) Google Cloud (includes GSuite): $30B run rate growing 28% YoY (la

Cloud 130
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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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Communicating Your Value in a Challenging Economy with Gavin Page

Predictable Revenue

The past few years have been a rollercoaster ride for everyone, especially those in […] The post Communicating Your Value in a Challenging Economy with Gavin Page appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

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At the Top SaaS Companies, Founder-CEOs Own ~15% at IPO. And Most Co-Founders Are Not Equal (And That’s OK). UPDATED

SaaStr

I was curious the other day how many of the recent Cloud and SaaS IPOs had founders that were equal co-founders from an equity perspective. That was how I was brought up (the first start-up job I had, the founders were equal shareholders). And I generally thought that 50:50 was the default, albeit with many exceptions. Well, I was wrong. Only 4 of the most recent ~30 SaaS/Cloud IPOs I looked at had equal founder ownership at IPO, Atlassian, Pagerduty, and (close enough) MongoDB and Amplitude:

SaaS 256
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ChatGPT learns to forget: OpenAI implements data privacy controls

IT World

OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed firm behind the groundbreaking ChatGPT generative AI system, announced this week that it would allow users to turn off the chat history feature for its flagship chatbot, in what’s being seen as a partial answer to critics concerned about the security of data provided to ChatGPT. The “history disabled” feature means that conversations marked as such won’t be used to train OpenAI’s underlying models, and won’t be displayed in the history sidebar.

Data 136
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How the U.S. Can Rewire the Pentagon for a New Era

Andreessen Horowitz

We are in the early stages of a generational defense cycle that requires unconventional thinking and tools. The invasion of Ukraine highlights this evolution: comparatively low-cost weapons, from drones to precision artillery, are leveraging cutting-edge networks, like SpaceX’s Starlink, to … The post How the U.S. Can Rewire the Pentagon for a New Era appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

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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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Hello, ZEO! with Stéphane Dierick, Senior Client Manager

Zuora

Hey, world—say Hello, ZEO to Stéphane Dierick. This series follows the unique stories of our people, whom we call ZEOs, […] The post Hello, ZEO! with Stéphane Dierick, Senior Client Manager appeared first on Zuora.

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Dear SaaStr: Is it OK to Modify the Standard SAFE Form?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: Is it OK to Modify the Standard SAFE Form? There’s an issue I see blow up several times now as an investor. It’s when a founder takes a so-called standard SAFE … and modifies it, and doesn’t really tell the investors it is sent to. Here’s what I’ve seen over the years: Removing antidilution protection Converting to last round security, not next round Converting to common, not next round security / preferred No premium / no return if company acq

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Schools look to ban ChatGPT, students use it anyway

IT World

School districts throughout the US and abroad have banned chatbot use on their networks and devices over fears students will use generative AI tech to hand in unauthentic and potentially plagiarized work. Universities and their professors are also wringing their hands about how to deal with artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT that students can use to write papers or generate exam answers.

AI 128
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How to Analyze Customer Data In SaaS? [Methods & Examples]

User Pilot

Why is it important to analyze customer data? Because it’s one of the best ways to improve customer retention and grow faster in SaaS. In this article, we cover: What customer behavior analysis is and why it’s important. 6 ways to collect and analyze customer data. What the best customer data platform is for SaaS companies. TLDR; Customer data analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing data to identify trends and better understand customers.

SaaS 98
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The Forrester Wave™: AI/ML Platforms: Vendor Strategy, Market Presence, and Capabilities Overview

As enterprises evolve their AI from pilot programs to an integral part of their tech strategy, the scope of AI expands from core data science teams to business, software development, enterprise architecture, and IT ops teams. Enterprises need a platform that can make broader AI teams more productive, implementing more complex use cases and harnessing the fast pace of new AI technologies.

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The Lazy Sales Technique Your Buyers Hate? Scoping Disguised as Discovery

Sales Hacker

If you’re a salesperson, you have to learn about your buyer. That’s a given. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. And too often, I see salespeople taking the quick and lazy path on discovery calls — the path that alienates and annoys the very prospects they’re trying to win over. You might call this discovery , but it’s actually more like scoping — that is, determining the scope of the eventual job.

Sales 93
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5 Interesting Learnings from Squarespace at $1 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

Squarespace produces amazing websites for SMBs — we are a big customer at SaaStr. And that’s powered it all the way to a $1B run-rate with 28% EBITDA. Self-serve products can and should be quite profitable at scale. But it’s also a story of hitting some limits on TAM, and growth has slowed to 10% at $1B ARR. And subscriber growth of only 3%. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

SMB 251
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EU closes in on AI Act with last-minute ChatGPT-related adjustments

IT World

The European Parliament is set to formalize its position on what could be the world’s first set of regulations for AI by a major legislative body, as EU lawmakers reached a provisional political agreement on Thursday. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been debating the content of the EU's AI Act and have agreed on compromise amendments, with a few last-minute adjustments pertaining to generative AI.

AI 123
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17 Onboarding UX Examples to Improve User Onboarding Experience

User Pilot

Building awesome user onboarding experiences requires a great deal of effort when starting from scratch. So we’ve collected onboarding UX examples from other companies to inspire you! Here are 17 user onboarding examples to help you create great user onboarding flows. TL;DR Onboarding UX is the design choices and the layout of the onboarding experience to help produce an excellent onboarding experience.

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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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Book Sales Meetings Faster With Our New Close + Calendly Integration

CloseSaaS

Quickly connect Calendly and Close directly so you can access more data, schedule meetings faster, and automate more of your sales process.

Sales 98
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Thanks to Google Cloud for Startups, HiBob, Quotapath, Spendflo, and Toplyne for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2023!

SaaStr

SaaStr events couldn’t happen without our partners, and we wanted to give a special shout-out to some of our newest sponsors for SaaStr Annual 2023. At the 9th ever SaaStr Annual, ~200 of the best and hottest companies on earth will go BIG as partners/sponsors. Join these incredible companies to experience all the value of SaaStr! Startups are solving the world’s important challenges with agility, innovative technology, and determination.

Startup 223
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Amazon, Facebook, Twitter on EU list of companies facing DSA content rules

IT World

The EU Commission has announced 19 large online platforms and search engines that will face new content moderation rules under the Digital Services Act. The legislation, passed last year, introduced a specific regime for Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs), all of which have more than 45 million users in the EU.