Sat.Jan 21, 2023 - Fri.Jan 27, 2023

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Why Now is a Great Time to Raise Seed Funding. Even If It’s Awful for Series A-E Rounds.

SaaStr

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.

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Slides from Emerging Stronger from the Downturn

Kellblog

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.

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How to Measure Customer Loyalty In SaaS: 10 Important Metrics to Track and Improve

User Pilot

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.

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Episode 6: Revolv3 | A Full Circle Conversation on Tokenization, Orchestration, and Innovation

Infinicept

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.

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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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What Does Product-Market Fit Feel Like?

Predictable Revenue

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.

More Trending

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How Layoffs in Startupland Differ Between B2B & B2C Companies

Tom Tunguz

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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Investing in Cygnvs

Andreessen Horowitz

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.

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Advantages of Authenticating Ownership of Bank Accounts

Agile Payments

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.

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Confluence vs. Jira

The Daily Egg

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.

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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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Pitchbook & IVP: Top Tier SaaS Companies Usually Raise at 15x ARR. It Was 114x in 2021.

SaaStr

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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B2B Growth Channels Available for Each CAC Level Part 3

Predictable Revenue

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.

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Microsoft as a Mirror - What We Can Expect for SaaS in 2023

Tom Tunguz

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%

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Pivotal Tracker Review

The Daily Egg

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.

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How to Achieve High-Accuracy Results When Using LLMs

Speaker: Ben Epstein, Stealth Founder & CTO | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO, Aggregage

When tasked with building a fundamentally new product line with deeper insights than previously achievable for a high-value client, Ben Epstein and his team faced a significant challenge: how to harness LLMs to produce consistent, high-accuracy outputs at scale. In this new session, Ben will share how he and his team engineered a system (based on proven software engineering approaches) that employs reproducible test variations (via temperature 0 and fixed seeds), and enables non-LLM evaluation m

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5 Interesting Learnings from ServiceNow at $7 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

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

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Clouded Judgement 1.27.23

Clouded Judgement

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.

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You can’t hire ambitious people and then ask them to stop being ambitious.

Sparktoro

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.

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Toggl Plan Review

The Daily Egg

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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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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Hiring Risks vs. Hiring Flags

SaaStr

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.

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4 Small Businesses on How They’re Changing Their Social Media Strategy in 2023

Buffer Resources

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.

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Cisco's Mac choice scheme confirms Apple's future in enterprise tech

IT World

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.

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Asana vs. Basecamp

The Daily Egg

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.

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The GTM Intelligence Era: ZoomInfo 2025 Customer Impact Report

ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!

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Dear SaaStr: Can Founders Still Sell Some of Their Shares in Venture Rounds in 2023?

SaaStr

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.

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Empathy and Customer Support: Finding the Right Balance

Buffer Resources

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

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Review: The M2 Mac mini is the perfect desktop for most users

IT World

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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Kanbanize Review

The Daily Egg

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.

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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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My Best Advice If You Are Laid Off

SaaStr

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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Introducing Checklists: The fastest way to turn signups into superusers

Intercom, Inc.

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.

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Appearance on the AI and the Future of Work Podcast

Kellblog

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.

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