SaaStr

MAY 27, 2023

Dear SaaStr: When is a Startup Ready to Raise Venture Capital These Days? First, bear in mind, start-up fundraising has gotten a lot harder than it’s been the past few years. A lot harder. The latest Carta data summarizes it well: But while raise VC capital has gotten harder, the rough rules in B2B / SaaS haven’t really changed: Seed Round: $10k-$100k a month in revenue Growing 150% annually or more Strong founders, including strong technical co-founder Series A: $2m ARR or more ($

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Startup CTO Churn 221

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 1, 2023

If we assume some basic productivity gains in a typical SaaS company from AI in the next 12-24 months, how much more profitable will the business be? Sales development, content marketing, & software engineering strike me as the workstreams that will benefit immediately. Team Team Productivity Gain % of Company Overall Gain SDR/BDR 15% 10% 1.5% Content marketing 30% 5% 1.5% Engineering 25% 40% 10% Overall - - 13% See assumptions here 1 This thought experiment highlights a few ideas to validat

AI 299

AI Startup Scale Headcount 299

User Pilot

MAY 31, 2023

Wondering how to unlock the full potential of your survey data and if survey data analysis will be of any help? The sheer volume of data generated can quickly become overwhelming, and this is where survey data analysis can help you. Survey data analysis is a powerful tool that allows you to delve deep into your user base's thoughts, opinions, and sentiments.

Data Analysis 98

Data Analysis Scaling Artificial Intelligence Data 98

IT World

MAY 30, 2023

Edge, sit down. We need to talk. (You too, Bing.) Lately you’ve gone from a browser that was ignored by many but had the potential to be a very well-behaved and secure browser to one that is being, well, a bit pushy. And Bing has been taking a page from your playbook and gotten a little pushy as well. Let’s take a recent change with Edge that is now exposed with controls.

Engineering 97

Engineering 97

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

Kellblog

MAY 30, 2023

This is a quick post to remind everyone who’s attending SaaStock USA in Austin later this week to come to my session at 2:30 pm on Thursday, June 1 on the Scale Stage, entitled How to Connect Your C-Suite to the Ground Truth. I’ve always believed that the hardest part of strategy is not figuring out what to do given what’s going on, but instead, more fundamentally, figuring out what’s going on — and getting consensus about that with your C-suite team.

Scaling 81

Scaling Strategy 81

Sales Hacker

MAY 30, 2023

What exactly do you “challenge” during a discovery? And how do you “challenge” your prospects without turning them off? Join this session with Becc Holland of Flip the Script to find out how to “challenge” prospects in a way that truly helps them & encourages them to buy. You’ll learn: How to uncover the prospect’s self-diagnosis & your expert-diagnosis How to “challenge” the difference The difference between a “misdiagnosis” & a “missed diagnosis” A complete list of the types of: Pr

Sales 68

Sales 68

Buffer Resources

MAY 31, 2023

In Antler’s 2023 Creator Economy report , 24 percent of creators surveyed highlighted longevity as a major concern — and for good reason. Even though it’s common to come across creators who are making enough income to go full-time, it’s just as common for creators to fade into oblivion. YouTuber Matt Koval puts the average creator career span at five to seven years (and that’s for the really persistent ones).

Technical Review 95

Technical Review Social Media Software Review Startup 95

yoursales

JUNE 1, 2023

Capturing Client & Prospect Communication: Unveiling the Powerful Key to Sales Success In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, where customer-centricity reigns supreme, the ability of capturing client & prospect communication has become a critical component for sales success. Consequently, sales leaders are concerned with how to harness the power of understanding what’s going on in client & prospect communication.

Communication 80

Communication Underperforming Technical Team Sales compliance 80

Zuora

MAY 31, 2023

In 2023, there are still on-prem billing solutions — crazy right? Well, as Beyonce says “let me upgrade you” with […] The post Billing System –> Monetization System = Modern Business appeared first on Zuora.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Payments Business Finance 52

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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

JUNE 1, 2023

So in one of the latest SaaStr surveys , we saw what a lot of us are feeling … it’s just hard to hit quota out there. Only 18% of you were hitting the 70%+ quota attainment that high-performing sales teams generally try to hit. And only 43% of you had sales teams that were hitting even 43% of quota attainment. That left 58% of you with sales teams seeing 20%-40% quota attainment … or less.

Scale 242

Scale Sales Scaling 242

The Daily Egg

JUNE 2, 2023

As a freelancer, keeping your work organized and on track is crucial to sustainable success. Despite that, most project management tools aren’t. The post Best Project Management Tools for Freelancers appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Management 177

Management 177

Tom Tunguz

MAY 29, 2023

I’ve been using large-language models (LLMs) most days for the past few months for three major use cases : data analysis, writing code, & web search 1. Here’s what I’ve observed: First, coding incrementally works better than describing a full task all at once. Second, coding LLMs struggle to solve problems of their own creation, turning in circles, & debugging can require significant work.

ChatGPT 155

ChatGPT AI Search Artificial Intelligence Data Analysis 155

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 2, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Dispersion! This week was quite interesting, with a number of big moves after quarterly reports. Let’s start with one obvious point - Q1s have been rough! Forget the outlook / guide for a minute. Just looking at Q1 in a vacuum we can say the quarters have objectively been quite bad.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends SMB Subscription 130

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Revenue

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2023

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about not screwing up that VP of Sales hire. Done right, it will accelerate your company to the next level. Done wrong — you can lose the better part of a year, and half of your last round of capital. And we’ve talked a lot about the trade-offs in the hire, including how to think about Stretch VPs … the ones that haven’t quite done it yet, but working for you is their shot.

Sales Hiring 218

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Revenue 218

IT World

JUNE 1, 2023

As generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard continue to evolve at a breakneck pace, raising questions around trustworthiness and even human rights, experts are weighing if or how the technology can be slowed and made more safe. In March, the nonprofit Future of Life Institute published an open letter calling for a six-month pause in the development of ChatGPT, the AI-based chatbot created by Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

AI 130

AI ChatGPT Generative AI Technology 130

Andreessen Horowitz

MAY 31, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS Generative AI is Coming for Insurance Because underwriting, selling, and servicing rely so heavily on humans processing large quantities of written or verbal communication, existing tools have struggled to properly automate these services and materially impact loss … The post Generative AI is Coming for Insurance (May 2023 Fintech Newsletter) appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Generative AI 120

Generative AI AI Communication 120

Buffer Resources

MAY 29, 2023

Landing my very first client was surprisingly easy thanks to the power of referrals. The startup I had been working for had just folded, and I turned to the network of marketing leaders I had built from that job and let them know the types of client work I was looking for: digital brand management, content creation , and paid media strategy. In no time, someone recommended me to a woman who was just starting to build her digital brand—and she’s been a client ever since.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Business Scale Social Media 105

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

Pricing

SaaStr

MAY 30, 2023

So one of the latest SaaStr surveys confirms what I’m seeing, and we’re seeing across many public SaaS companies. Hiring has way slowed down, but many folks are still hiring, albeit at a reduced rate. 56% of you aren’t hiring, or barely hiring. And very few of you are doubling headcount, vs everyone in 2021. But a good chunk of you are still hiring, albeit in moderation.

Sales Hiring 209

Sales Hiring Headcount Engineering Revenue 209

IT World

JUNE 1, 2023

Here comes an entirely new kind of computer. Events like this don’t happen often. So, we should all stop and marvel at the emergence of what I call the ARPC — the “augmented reality PC.” The “form factor” solves the decades-old desire to maximize screen size while minimizing hardware size. And it’s ideal for the age of remote work, digital nomad living, workcations, bleisure travel, staybaticals, hot-desking, hoteling, and every other future-of-work neologism that has emerged since the Covid pla

Travel 129

Travel 129

User Pilot

MAY 30, 2023

Every successful product marketer has at some point wondered how to create a persona. Good user personas are critical to any successful product marketing campaign. They help you decide what product or service to prioritize, streamline your advertising and marketing, and better connect leads with their goals and pain points. Put simply, user personas impact your entire business model.

Social Media 98

Social Media Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Product Marketing 98

Sales Hacker

MAY 30, 2023

Get ready for Sales Hacker and Lavender ‘s new series: Pardon The Outbound, with Will Allred and Kristina Finseth. In this first episode, Will and Kristina check out a cold email that was sent to Will. Boy, oh boy, do they have some opinions in this one. And Will shares some cool data points, too! In the end, it’s all gravy, because Will and Kristina both re-wrote a new version of the email that they each think would do the job much better.

Sales 95

Sales Data Development 95

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

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Does Bootstrapping Through an Agency/Services Business Work? Running two businesses at once well is really, really hard. But I think if you are thoughtful about it, using an agency/services business can be a viable way to bootstrap your way into a SaaS business — as long as you transition over fairly early to doing your SaaS business 100%.

Business 206

Business Investment Software Scaling 206

IT World

JUNE 2, 2023

Unlike the consumer metaverse, which was largely backed by Facebook and was effectively dead on arrival, the commercial metaverse is doing rather well. Nvidia is currently the darling of Wall Street and is the primary driver for the commercial metaverse. But creating this industrial-grade metaverse and the digital twins of real objects in it requires a lot of heavy lifting in terms of 3D scanning to duplicate real objects in this virtual environment.

106

106

User Pilot

MAY 30, 2023

When it comes to customer experience survey best practices you have to consider the timing, placement, wording, and the right audience segments, among other things. In this article, we’ll share 15 of our survey best practices to help you factor in the aforementioned and make the most of customer feedback. TL;DR A customer experience survey is a questionnaire designed to help a business capture customers’ thoughts and feelings about a product.

Social Media 98

Social Media Scale Artificial Intelligence AI 98

Buffer Resources

MAY 30, 2023

Question: Why have short-form videos become so popular in the past few years, and how can I use them for my social media? Move over software — there’s a new world eater in town. Short-form video snuck up on us, becoming the most consumed online content in a few years. It’s your best bet if the consensus is anything to go by — 85% of marketers say short-form video is the most effective format on social media.

Social Media 93

Social Media Entertainment Trends Branding 93

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Payments

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Many Board Seats Do VCs Typically Get? Let me try to simplify, generally speaking: 1. Generally, “proportionate” boards are usually seen as fair, and easy to agree to. I.e., if the investors own 20%, and founders 80%, then investors get 1 board seat, that’s it. Founders can have 2 (or more) now, etc. If the investors own 50%, then split the board 50:50 (often with an outside to break a tie).

Leadership 189

Leadership Strategy 189

IT World

MAY 30, 2023

Hundreds of tech industry leaders, academics, and others public figures signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence (AI) evolution could lead to an extinction event and saying that controlling the tech should be a top global priority. “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” read the statement published by San Francisco-based Center for AI Safety.

Artificial Intelligence 105

Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT Scale AI 105

User Pilot

MAY 31, 2023

Not sure how to measure product adoption or what metrics to track? Product adoption is key to creating loyal users for your SaaS and it’s important to track it regularly. In this article, we’ll explore how to measure product adoption and twelve key metrics that can provide valuable insights into product adoption. TL;DR Product adoption refers to the process by which customers integrate a new product into their daily lives or business operations.

Metrics 98

Metrics Customer Lifetime Value Churn Retention 98