September, 2023

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The Top 20 Symptoms of a Weak Development Team

TechEmpower SaaS

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.

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Dear SaaStr: What is The Biggest Difference Between Running a 10 Person Startup and a 100 Person Startup?

SaaStr

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.

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Building a Generational Business Databrick by Databrick

Tom Tunguz

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 316
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Selling Smarter, Not Harder: Rethinking the Sales Cycle with L’areal Lipkins

Predictable Revenue

Collin Stewart of the Predictable Revenue Podcast sought answers to pressing questions in an engaging conversation with L’areal Lipkins. The post Selling Smarter, Not Harder: Rethinking the Sales Cycle with L’areal Lipkins appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales 130
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Going Beyond Chatbots: Connecting AI to Your Tools, Systems, & Data

Speaker: Alex Salazar, CEO & Co-Founder @ Arcade | Nate Barbettini, Founding Engineer @ Arcade | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO @ Aggregage

If AI agents are going to deliver ROI, they need to move beyond chat and actually do things. But, turning a model into a reliable, secure workflow agent isn’t as simple as plugging in an API. In this new webinar, Alex Salazar and Nate Barbettini will break down the emerging AI architecture that makes action possible, and how it differs from traditional integration approaches.

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ClickTime Review

The Daily Egg

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 287

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News: Tentative Settlement in Google Play Direct-to-Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit Announced

FastSpring

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

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Salesforce, Samsara, Monday and More: “Layoffs are Over. We’re Back to Hiring. Thousands.”

SaaStr

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.

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The Rise of Data Lakes in Software Architecture

Tom Tunguz

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.

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How Are Consumers Using Generative AI?

Andreessen Horowitz

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?

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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StoreApps Review

The Daily Egg

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 286
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Clouded Judgement 9.1.23 - Are Software Companies Over or Undervalued?

Clouded Judgement

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).

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Release Notes | September 2023: FastSpring Improves ACH Authorization Rates and Updates Trial UI

FastSpring

Release notes is our monthly highlight of our great features coming out on the FastSpring platform so you’ll be able to pick up and go with the latest features for your store. If you want to know more about FastSpring, reach out to our sales team for a demo , or try it yourself. Improved User Experience in Free Trial UI We’re always looking for ways to improve user experience in our application.

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Dear SaaStr: We Don’t Need It. Should We Still Go After Venture Capital, and When?

SaaStr

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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5 Ways to Improve Revenue from Integrated Payments

Speaker: Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments

Most integrated payments providers share a percent of the payment revenue with their software partners. But, oftentimes, that revenue share is only a fraction of the true income potential software providers can realize. If you want to maximize income opportunities from your payments program, check out Wind River Payments’ webinar-on-demand.

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4 Key Takeaways from the AI Panel at Saastr 2023

Tom Tunguz

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.

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Commercializing AI in Healthcare: The Jobs to be Done

Andreessen Horowitz

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.

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How To Use Pepper Content

The Daily Egg

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 278
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A Look Back at Q2 '23 Public Cloud Software Earnings

Clouded Judgement

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 176
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SaaS Essentials: Failed Payment Solution Guide

For SaaS businesses, improving retention is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive revenue and profits. With a clear link between failed payments and customer churn, having a robust failed payment recovery solution isn’t optional—it’s essential. Achieving your retention goals starts with the right solution.

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Announcing: Comprehensive Reporting for Free and Paid Trials

FastSpring

Looking to leverage FastSpring’s subscription capabilities and want to try out reports for yourself? Sign up for a demo or check out our free trial. Trials are the gateway to growth for many SaaS and software companies. Understanding the dynamics of those trials is at the heart of optimized trial conversion rates — which helps you achieve product-led growth.

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How to Be a Much Better Sales Executive in About 60 Seconds

SaaStr

So this post is, in some ways, a repeat. I’ve made this point before. But never in its own post. And I’m making it again because it’s something between all these Calendly invites, and side hustles, and more that everyone has gotten worse at. We’ve all gotten worse at getting back to prospects and customers — fast. Contact Me has its place, perhaps.

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Building Applications with AI - Lessons from LangChain, Hearth, & Context.ai

Tom Tunguz

Yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt, Harrison Chase , founder of LangChain , Ashe Magalhaes founder of Hearth , & Henry Scott-Green , founder of Context.ai , & I discussed the future of building LLM-enabled applications. We assembled the panel as a three layer cake : Hearth, the application ; Langchain, the infrastructure ; Context.ai, the product analytics.

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Instacart

Andreessen Horowitz

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.

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From Start to Scale: Driving Growth Through Seamless Payments Implementation

Speaker: Michael Veatch, Senior Director, Implementations & Ella Aguirre, Director of Solution Consulting

Embedding payments can be a transformative step for software companies looking to enhance their platform capabilities, boost customer satisfaction, and drive long-term growth. However, the success of payments hinges on a single thing: implementation. Drawing on real-world insights and experiences, payments implementation experts Michael Veatch and Ella Aguirre will explore actionable strategies that can lead to a transparent, friction-free launch and mitigate potential challenges like technical

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AccessAlly Review

The Daily Egg

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.

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Clouded Judgement 9.8.23 - Early Q2 '23 Earnings Recap

Clouded Judgement

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 176
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I've Used Bluesky for 6 Months – Here's What You Should Know

Buffer Resources

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.

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Can We Even Afford to Do SMB Sales in the U.S. Anymore?

SaaStr

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 318
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An Omnichannel Payment Solution––Without the Complexity

Simplify omnichannel payments with a solution that unifies every channel through your platform. By integrating front-end systems like online, mobile, and in-store payments with robust back-end infrastructure, you can deliver a seamless payments experience without the need for heavy engineering. Omnitoken technology enhances security by tokenizing card transactions for reuse, enabling merchants to drive cross-selling opportunities.

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A Little Yellow Book in the Corner Bookshelf of a Coffee Shop

Tom Tunguz

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.

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What Builders Talk About When They Talk About AI

Andreessen Horowitz

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.

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Internxt Review

The Daily Egg

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.