SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2023

So now is simply a terrible time to be raising growth stage venture capital. With the BVP Cloud Index down 40%+ from a year ago , and many of the top Cloud leaders trading for as low as 5x ARR, it’s just hard to justify a later stage $300m-$400m valuation round these days, let alone a true unicorn round. We just did our latest Workshop Wednesday with Omers Growth, and they only did one growth investment last year.

AWS 340

AWS Venture Capital Finance Cloud 340

Kellblog

JANUARY 24, 2023

Here are the slides from the Balderton Capital webinar I did today with Michael Lavner , entitled How to Emerge Stronger from the Downturn than You Went In. For people who can’t use Slideshare, they are also available here. We discuss: The importance of how founders/CEOs frame challenges to the organization. What we mean by “stronger.” Focus, how to do fewer things, better — including reading The Crux by Richard Rumelt.

B2B 115

B2B Trends SaaS Venture Capital 115

User Pilot

JANUARY 26, 2023

How do you measure customer loyalty? Building loyalty is essential to retain customers, drive word-of-mouth, and nurture product growth. But since loyalty is more of a concept rather than a number, it might be confusing to think about ways to track it. Thankfully, there are metrics you can use to expand your field of view and estimate how loyal your customers are.

SaaS Payments 91

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Metrics Payment Methods 91

Infinicept

JANUARY 26, 2023

Our guest for this podcast is Revolv3 Chief Product Officer, Robert Podlesni. We discuss the importance of tokenization, recent rules changes at Mastercard and Visa, the opportunities, therein, and how Revolv3 is helping Infinicept customers benefit from it all. Read the full transcript below. Todd Ablowitz (00:09): Welcome to It Pays to Know, the Infinicept podcast where we dive deeply into.

Innovation 98

Innovation 98

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Payment Solutions

Predictable Revenue

JANUARY 23, 2023

Using pirate metrics to know when you’ve reached product-market-fit. These five key metrics can help you determine where you are on your journey and how to course correct if needed. The post What Does Product-Market Fit Feel Like? appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Product Marketing 239

Product Marketing Marketing Metrics Revenue 239

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2023

The current wave of layoffs, a difficult component of the innovation boom/bust cycle, differs from the previous years’ dynamics. B2B companies have reduced headcount to a greater extent than at any time since 2020. In the last three years, B2C startups’ ratio of layoffs have dwarfed B2B layoffs. In 2020, B2C companies cut 8.8x the number of B2B employees. 3.8x in 2021, & 6.9x in 2022.

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B2C B2B Headcount Business Model 273

Andreessen Horowitz

JANUARY 24, 2023

Cyber incidents have reached a crisis level over the past decade. In 2021, the U.S. saw 1,862 data compromises , affecting nearly 300 million people (a nearly 100% increase from five years ago). Cybersecurity practitioners no longer wonder if they … The post Investing in Cygnvs appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Investment 137

Investment Cybersecurity Data 137

Agile Payments

JANUARY 25, 2023

Authenticating ownership of a bank account is a crucial step in ensuring the security and integrity of financial transactions. It is a process of verifying that the person claiming to own a bank account is indeed the rightful owner. This can be done through a variety of means, including providing personal identification, answering security questions, or providing a signature.

Banking 88

Banking 88

The Daily Egg

JANUARY 26, 2023

Confluence and Jira are both project management tools offered by Atlassian. Both can help teams get organized, share knowledge, and complete complex. The post Confluence vs. Jira appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Management 341

Management 341

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SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2023

So there are a lot of rough and arm chair metrics for fundraising in SaaS in terms of valuations. For years, the standard was “about 10x” Top tier SaaS companies would tend to raise at around 10x ARR, with ones with slightly lower growth often raising at 5x. As SaaS picked up, 10x ARR remained a rough standard but for Series A, B and later rounds grew to about 15x for top performing SaaS companies.

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Venture Capital AWS SaaS Startup 67

Predictable Revenue

JANUARY 26, 2023

Michael Gaudet joins the Predictable Revenue podcast to discuss the best B2B growth channels for $50k+ CAC levels and how to use them to drive pipeline revenue. The post B2B Growth Channels Available for Each CAC Level Part 3 appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

B2B 52

B2B Revenue Development Sales 52

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 23, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. Yesterday, Microsoft announced earnings. The transcript highlights the major trends in software of 2023. Below, I’ve listed those trends with data & excerpts from the earnings call transcript. 1. Enterprises Have Slowed their Spending, Decelerating Further in December: Company Q-6 CAGR Q-5 CAGR Q-4 CAGR Q-3 CAGR Q-2 CAGR Q-1 CAGR Q-0 CAGR Guidance Microsoft Azure 50% 51% 46% 46% 40% 35% 31%

Azure 239

Azure Underperforming Technical Team Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 239

The Daily Egg

JANUARY 27, 2023

Toggl is a time-tracking software with project management elements, including team timelines, flexible tasks, and client collaboration. With additional products in planning. The post Toggl Plan Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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Software Review Software Management 285

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O'Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

Revenue

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2023

During the Boom Times of late ’20-early ’22, we all often confused Taking Risks in hiring … with Just Plain Ignoring Flags. Great risks to take IMHE: Been a Director, but never VP. The best VPs of Sales I’ve hired were Directors of Sales before. Not ICs, not top reps. But folks that had built small teams themselves, and were ready to go to the next level.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 306

Sparktoro

JANUARY 22, 2023

Hiring managers, executives, CEOs—especially those in tech—are proud to say that we only consider applicants with an unrelenting drive for success and a track record of impressive accomplishments.

Management 144

Management 144

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 23, 2023

Social media is always evolving – as should your strategies for creating content. While you may have tried and tested methods when it comes to your social media posts, testing out something different is a great way to stay on top of trends and potentially grow your following. Here are four examples from small businesses and content creators who’re implementing new social media strategies in 2023.

Social Media 144

Social Media Strategy Business Compensation 144

The Daily Egg

JANUARY 26, 2023

There are many cloud-based project management software packages available, and Asana and Basecamp are two of the industry leaders. Asana keeps things. The post Asana vs. Basecamp appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Cloud 281

Cloud Software Management 281

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Enterprise

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2023

So we took a look at ServiceNow a little ways back at $5B in ARR , but I thought it was worth another deep dive now for a very specific reason: Their very seasoned CEO has sees no real slowdown or downturn in their business. At $7 Billion in ARR, growing ~30% annually, quarter over quarter over quarter. “[We’re] not fighting those headwinds”: Given that customers sign 3+ year, $1m+ contracts, one wouldn’t expect any massive decline in revenue from any shorter-term macro

Azure 293

Azure Cloud Enterprise Payment Features 293

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 27, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Azure (Microsoft) Quarter The week the first of the cloud giants reported - Azure. Their results were quite interesting. Q4 ‘22 (I’m talking about calendar quarters here, not their fiscal quarters), came in at 38% growth YoY in constant currency.

Cloud 141

Cloud Azure Pricing Payment Features 141

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 27, 2023

Empathy is a powerful way to build trust, but leaning in too far can also backfire. Something I’ve come to wonder after 3.5 years at Buffer as a Customer Advocate is how can we use empathy effectively to enhance the customer support experience? "The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communica

Customer Support 142

Customer Support Technical Review Technology Communication 142

The Daily Egg

JANUARY 27, 2023

Kanbanize uses visually organized Kanban boards to smooth and automate workflows, track metrics, and help project managers and team members adhere to. The post Kanbanize Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Metrics 275

Metrics Management 275

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ClinicSense is a SaaS platform that supports over 7,000 massage therapists who use it for appointment management, payments, scheduling, marketing activities and more. Despite having a relatively low payment failure rate, the company discovered that the failures disrupted the customer experience. This often led to churn as customers decided to cancel or abandon their account, preventing ClinicSense from realizing the full lifetime value (LTV) of its users.

Payments

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Can Founders Still Sell Some of Their Shares in Venture Rounds in 2023? It’s a lot harder than it was 12 months ago. “Secondary liquidity” for founders is a fluid question and process. Up until say 2017–2018 or so, in SaaS, there was a rough rule: a relatively small amount of secondary liquidity ($1m-$2m) would be offered by growth investors in top VC rounds once a startup crossed $10m ARR or so.

Startup 57

Startup Investment SaaS Revenue 57

IT World

JANUARY 25, 2023

Two-thirds of employees would use a Mac at work if given the choice, and companies that fail to offer hardware options to their employees are making a mistake. That’s one of the inferences I see reprised in a report exploring Cisco’s approach to Mac deployment across its business that crossed my desk last week. Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin looked at Cisco’s Mac enterprise team, now led by former IBM CIO Fletcher Previn.

Enterprise 134

Enterprise Strategy Business 134

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 25, 2023

Every SaaS business faces the same challenge: how to get new customers to realize the value their product can deliver, as quickly as possible. With that in mind, simple, effective onboarding is a must-have within any product, and a crucial element of customer adoption and retention. But it can be surprisingly difficult to effectively communicate the steps your customers need to take.

Onboarding 129

Onboarding Engagement Retention Engineering 129

The Daily Egg

JANUARY 23, 2023

Most project management software casts a wide net, allowing teams to collaborate seamlessly on projects, even across diverse departments like IT, marketing, The post Pivotal Tracker Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Software Review 266

Software Review Software Management Marketing 266

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Payments

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

Layoffs are brutal. In fact, I don’t think they generally ever should ever happen in SaaS. Why not? The simple fact is if you have 110%, 120%+ NRR … then you >know< You know then next 6-8 months, within a range. You should plan to that model. Many of us got into trouble by not just hiring to the plan our “last 4 months” average growth model told us to hire to.

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Startup SaaS 287

IT World

JANUARY 23, 2023

Nothing is the same with Apple Silicon. While the leap from M1 to M2 chips doesn’t deliver quite as big a performance improvement as the jump from previous Mac chips to Apple Silicon did, it still adds enough juice to ensure that even the entry-level M2 Mac mini does what most people need. The Geekbench tests Here are some Geekbench performance figures for entry-level Mac mini configurations dating back to 2011.

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Systems Review Data 132

Kellblog

JANUARY 25, 2023

Just a quick post to highlight my recent appearance on the AI and the Future of Work podcast hosted by my friend Dan Turchin. I joined Dan to discuss my work-in-process 2023 predictions post (which I really need to get finished in the next week). We start out by reviewing a few of my 2022 predictions , where Dan takes a somewhat European angle in his questioning given my work with Balderton Capital.

AI 123

AI Venture Capital Startup Strategy 123