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.

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Venture Capital Investment Leadership 272

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 195

Cloud Revenue Software Review SaaS 195

TechEmpower SaaS

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

When speaking with founders and CEOs, we often hear concerns like this: My project manager is losing confidence in the development team. The PMs are seeing late deliveries and bugs that suggest the devs just aren’t capable enough. I think that poor communication and differing team cultures might be part of the problem, but how can I know for sure? It’s a good question.

Underperforming Technical Team 390

Underperforming Technical Team Development Software Review Technical Review 390

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 194

Technical Review Software Review Software Data 194

Speaker: John Mansour - President, Product Management University

You know that sinking feeling. You’ve come up with a winning product strategy, everyone’s on board and energized, and you’re halfway down the path to execution only to have it submarined by something someone convinced your leadership was more strategic! It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar and it exemplifies one of the biggest struggles with individual product strategies.

Strategy

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 24, 2023

On October 5th at 9:30am Pacific time, Office Hours will host Oliver Jay , former CRO at Asana & executive at Dropbox. Having worked at two of the most successful bottoms-up SaaS companies, Oliver understands the product-led growth motion better than most. Recently, he’s written about the PLG trap. “Although the PLG approach yields rapid initial adoption and growth, scaling a PLG company is a different story.

Scale 162

Scale SaaS Scaling Sales 162

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Is It Ridiculous To Call Yourself the CEO When Your Startup is Tiny? I used to feel that way, at least a bit. I used to look at tiny little startups and wince when a founder went around talking about himself as “CEO”. But then I had to learn how to Sell to Big Customers, and Sell to Power. And what I learned is customers care. Customers and prospects want to talk to the CEO.

Startup 278

Startup Customer Success SaaS Retention 278

Point Nine Land

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Unveiling the 2023 SaaS Funding Napkin At the annual SaaStr conference in San Mateo three weeks ago, I delved into fundraising trends in 2023, discussing the implications of investors’ new-found love for efficiency vs. growth at all costs for founders, and why you should expect AI to come up in (almost) every pitch meeting. Here’s a recording of the talk for those interested.

SaaS 117

SaaS AI Finance Data 117

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.

AI 140

AI Artificial Inteligence Scale Scaling 140

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Artisanal chocolate, artisanal candles, artisanal silk scarves. What about an artisanal email? LLM’s powerful content generation abilities will soon automate many emails we send. Sales teams have started using software that identifies leads, researches them, identifies commonalities (a shared university affiliation or a passion for a sports team), drafts the email, & sends it.

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Scale Artificial Inteligence Headcount Sales 133

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

One of the biggest challenges for any B2B marketer is understanding your prospects’ next move — who is most likely to buy and when. Without these insights, marketing campaigns can feel more like guesswork, with high investment and little return. We’re here to tell you there’s a better way. By tracking buyers’ digital footprints and online activity, such as website visits, product reviews, and spikes in content consumption, you can engage prospects with a message that really resonates.

Data

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Over the past year, we’ve had tons of founders ask where they should be prioritizing their marketing dollars and resources considering the wild economic year that 2023 has unfolded as. Based on an annual Gartner report on CMO spend for 2023, 71% said that they lack the budget to fully execute their strategies in 2023, predicting that it will remain as restrictive in 2024.

Scale 105

Scale Marketing B2B ChatGPT 105

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 278

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Scaling 278

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Thinking about building a growth team? This article provides the guide you need. As you read on, you’ll learn: The key responsibilities of SaaS growth teams. The main steps involved in the growth process. Different roles on the growth team and their functions — as well as which roles to prioritize if you’re not ready to go all in. Examples of in-app experiments to drive growth.

SaaS 105

SaaS Onboarding Scale Growth Marketing 105

Inturact

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Acquiring new customers can sometimes be a real nightmare, so it’s no surprise that the sales team has a huge sigh of relief once a client has registered. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that the job is done. After registration, you want to ensure that the client will stay and to do so you need to pay attention to the customer onboarding process.

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Onboarding Sales 111

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In today's tech-driven world, software companies are poised at a pivotal crossroads. This article delves into the transformative power of adopting a payments-centric mindset. Beyond mere transactional mechanisms, integrated payments offer a plethora of strategic benefits and user experience enhancements. Dive into the dynamics of how this integration can amplify a software company's value proposition, making them not just observers but active propellers of digital commerce.

Payment Solutions

Infinicept

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

DENVER, September 26, 2023 — Infinicept, a leading provider of embedded payments, and Datacap Systems, Inc., leading hardware and processor-agnostic omnichannel payments provider, today announced a partnership to provide coordinated support for vertical software companies on their embedded payments journeys. Infinicept’s embedded payments platform, PayOps, and Payfac as a Service, Launchpay.

Payments 105

Payments Payment Solutions Embedded Payments Payment Services 105

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

This conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, which features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution. To date, a handful of large companies have captured the value created by advances in AI.

AI 109

AI Startup Scale Artificial Inteligence 109

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Biggest Problems You Face as a Startup Founder? The list of problems is endless (this is one of the hardest parts of the job), but let me try to order a few of the biggest challenges roughly based on stage: Pre-Revenue: Finding a Truly Great Co-Founder That is Just as Committed as You. Some of us can go the distance as solo founders, and others of us can find a great co-founder, or perhaps a COO … later.

Sales Hiring 262

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Sales Recruiting 262

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

The product development process is part art, part science, and all important to the success of your SaaS. In this article, we've got a comprehensive review of the entire product development process. We'll take you through idea generation, market research, defining a minimum viable product, building new features, managing the launch, and beyond.

Development 102

Development Software Review Sales Recruiting Technical Review 102

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Embedding dashboards, reports and analytics in your application presents unique opportunities and poses unique challenges. We interviewed 16 experts across business intelligence, UI/UX, security and more to find out what it takes to build an application with analytics at its core. No matter where you are in your analytics journey, you will learn about emerging trends and gather best practices from product experts.

Interviewing

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Dan Reich is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and writer and has been building companies since he was a teenager. Some of the companies that he founded include: TULA Skincare which was acquired by Proctor & Gamble – Troops.ai which was acquired by Salesforce – Spinback which was acquired by Buddy Media and then acquired by Salesforce.

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B2C B2B Compensation Acquisition 104

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Like many others, I read and reply to hundreds of emails every week and I have for years. And as with anything — some emails are so much better than others. Some emails truly stand out because the person took time to research, or they shared their request quickly. There are a lot of things that can take an email from good to great, and in this post, we’re going to get into them.

ChatGPT 92

ChatGPT Outsourcing Services Systems Review AI 92

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

This conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, which features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution. Will AI take all the design jobs? Dylan Field, founder and CEO of Figma, looks at the relationship between designers, developers, and AI, in conversation with a16z’s David George. [00:36] Will AI rep

AI 104

AI Startup Enterprise Development 104

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Theoretically, the relationship between sales and marketing should be easy –– after all, these teams are responsible for pulling in more business and increasing revenue. However, it is often the case that relationships are complicated between these teams, and sometimes they can even butt heads. Unfortunately, this type of tension is all too common and plagues many companies.

SaaS 269

SaaS Enterprise Sales Marketing 269

Speaker: Data Robot

Enterprise AI maturity has evolved dramatically over the past 5 years. Most enterprises have now experienced their first successes with predictive AI, but the pace and scale of impact have too often been underwhelming. Now generative AI has emerged and captivated the minds and imaginations of leaders and innovators everywhere. Join our DataRobot experts to reflect on lessons learned from helping hundreds of enterprises grow their AI maturity over the past 5 years.

AI

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

What is funnel analysis? What benefits does it bring to product teams? How do you conduct it to optimize the customer journey, and which analytics tools can you use? These are the key questions that we tackle in the article, so if you’re after the answers, fasten the seatbelts, and let’s get right into it! TL;DR Funnel analysis helps teams understand how many users complete a sequence of events leading to a conversion and how long it takes.

Onboarding 100

Onboarding Churn Metrics Sales Funnel 100

Nimble - Sales

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Your CRM system is an indispensable tool for efficiently managing your leads and prospects while providing top-notch customer service to your clients. However, the advantages of a CRM extend beyond these aspects. With Nimble CRM, you can optimize your sales workflow to effectively acquire and convert prospects into valuable leads, ultimately fostering customer loyalty.

Sales 64

Sales Strategy Management Business 64

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Some things you need to know about me: I’m an introvert and I’m shy. And, to build up my business, I’ve been actively building my personal brand on social media for three years. These things seem rather at odds with each other, don’t they? Before you ask, introversion and shyness are not one and the same. For example, I prefer my own company — preferably curled up with a novel — to socializing because of my low social battery (introvert).

Social Media 96

Social Media Branding Management Content Marketing 96

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

This conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, which features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution. Cofounder and CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei unpacks how far can scaling laws take us and how AI can be used to improve AI. [0:32] Dario’s background [2:26] GPT-2’s emergent capabilities [5:56]

AI 98

AI Scale Scaling Underperforming Technical Team 98

Speaker: Shyvee Shi - Product Lead and Learning Instructor at LinkedIn

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, Generative AI products stand at the cutting edge. These products, with their unique capabilities, bring fresh opportunities and challenges that demand a fresh approach to product management. This presentation unveils a comprehensive 7-step framework designed to navigate the complexities of developing, launching, and scaling Generative AI products.

AI

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

So a lot of folks on social media talk about more work-life balance in SaaS, and I totally get it. Every month, every quarter, the number needs to go up in sales. Layoffs in some cases have been brutal. The pressure can be intense, and even if it’s not intense, it’s just … there. Especially in venture-backed startups with high growth expectations. “Unicorn” sounded like a rite of passage in 2021.

SaaS 230

SaaS Scale Startup Social Media 230

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Product-led growth is one of the big SaaS buzzwords. Our ultimate guide explores what PLG is, how it differs from different growth strategies, and why product-led growth matters for SaaS businesses. It also looks at different PLG models, how to implement them, and important metrics to track. Finally, we look at a few examples of successful product-led businesses.

Software 104

Software Scale SaaS Onboarding 104

Nimble - Sales

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

About DLA Ignite Meet DLA Ignite, where innovation meets sales strategy. With Tim Hughes leading the organization as CEO and Co-Founder, this dynamic business consulting company has been shaking up the business world for seven years. They’re all about transforming organizations by showing them the power of social media in their sales strategy – a […] The post How Nimble CRM Slashed Data Entry Time by 95% for DLA Ignite appeared first on Nimble Blog.

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Data Social Media Consulting Sales 64